Holding the Moon
by Kitten in the Shadows
Summary: The Marauders were always regarded as the best of friends, as thick as thieves. This is a story of the acceptance they gave, the pranks they pulled, and the beliefs formed together, all to save one boy from the moon (Work in progress, slower updates).
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

A door shut quietly, then the sounds of several locks being shut was heard. That was the only sound present in the modest house, despite the small child playing on the floor of the kitchen. The child, despite his young age, was aware of the tense atmosphere in the house, and quietly played with his ragged stuffed dog and his imaginary friends. The unpleasant smell of singed soup burning on the stove greeted the nostrils of the father, who had just finished the set of complicated locks. He hurried through the house, pausing at the doorway of the kitchen, calling out a short greeting to his son. His son beamed up at his father, giving him a slight wave as he passed through. The two were very close since no other children lived in the area, The boy was very advanced for his age, and with a lack of friends brought forth a surplus of knowledge. The boy was from a magical family, his father was a wizard. His mother didn't have any magic, but she gladly supplied the boy with books to further his knowledge. At the age of two he had displayed his first talents of magic, and was able to show surprising control over it. His mother encouraged it, while his father was a bit wary of the power such a small child wielded. As a result, his mother was closer to the son of the two parents, and the fact that she didn't work added to the closeness of the two. His mother was the individual being searched for in the small house, as the father started upstairs to find her. The child heard the sound of a door being closed, and the murmur of low voices could be heard. The boy was curious, wondering why his parents why his parents were bothering to hide their conversation from him. They were very open as a family, and never in the boy's memory could he remember a conversation that didn't include him. He was a rather polite child, even at a young age, but his curiosity often got the better of him. So the boy started his way up the stairs, trying to avoid the many that squeaked. Finally he crouched at the base of his parent's door, clutching his faithful stuffed dog in one hand. There he lay down, straining to hear without being heard himself.

"I just don't know what to do" the father was saying. "the ministry is looking for him, but I don't know if they can find him in time." Here there were footsteps, and the boy couldn't hear anything over the sound of the wardrobe being opened, and the rustling of clothes.

"..careful, it's dangerous to at night, and its especially dangerous to be outside."

The boys ears perked up at that, but then felt the rumble of hurried footsteps on the floor, and quickly fled to his room to escape being caught eavesdropping, as his mom rushed out to save the burning soup.

The next day the child played outside, happily chatting away with his ragged dog and imaginary friends, glad to be in the fresh air with his friends. But when his father arrived home he was shocked to be jerked inside, so fast he couldn't even grab his dog and, as a consequence, his imaginary friends stayed in the yard as well.

"What are you doing out?" His father raged, his face burning with an anger the son had never seen on his face before.

The boy remained silent, unsure how to placate the rage directed at him, and unsure what was so wrong with being outside.

"Well?" His father was still waiting for an answer, but the boy refused to say a word. Instead he turned away to go and find his mother in the kitchen, sure that she would comfort him and sooth his father, and his father turned away and began to redo the intricate design of locks on the door.

Later after dinner the boy was sent to bed early, his parents checking on him to make sure he was in bed. But soon after he heard his parents' door click shut he realized that he didn't have his friends with him. His friends were afraid of the dark, and even though the moon was shining bright through his window, his band of friends couldn't stay outside alone. He remembered what his dad had said just a day before, "it's dangerous at night...especially outside". So he carefully lifted his feet out from under his warm covers, taking no notice of his slippers laying on the floor beside his bed, and ignoring the robe hanging on the bed knob. Silently, he slipped down the stairs, taking great pains to avoid the ever present creaky stairs. His father hated when he got out of bed, even if it was something as simple as getting a glass of water. So the child sneaked down the stairs, trying not to alert his parents to the fact that he was awake. Carefully he came to the door, wary of the new locks. He knew how to unlock the few that were lowest down, but the new ones his father had put in last week were higher up, even standing on a chair dragged over to the door he was too short. The boy closed his eyes in a fleeting moment of desperation and frustration, and realized that he could simply use some magic to open it. He closed his eyes again, this time in concentration unusual for a child this age, and focused his attention on the opening of the last few locks. With a series of clicks the door opened, and the boy dragged the chair away so he could reach the door handle. He walked into the front lawn, taking great joy in the dew that covered his bare feet, and dancing around the moonlight for a fit of childish joy. He remembered his mission then, and walked over to where his dog and imaginary friends had been sitting earlier that afternoon. But to his surprise, although his dog was there, his imaginary friends seemed to have wandered off. So the boy glanced around cautiously, unsure of what to do with this new development. Then he saw one of his friends motioning to him from the lone tree that sat in the center of the fields surrounding his home. He ran over to the friend, overjoyed to have found it, and embraced the air. To any onlooker it would look as though there actually was another being there, since the boy's arms seemed to fit eerily around, as though he actually was hugging someone. Suddenly, the boy heard a low whine from the edge of his lawn, in the tall grass where the field began, and saw a shadow moving.

"Dog?" The boy said, sure that the shadow he had just seen belonged to a larger version of his own stuffed friend. And when he heard a second whine in response to his words, he knew that he was right; there was a dog there.

"Dog!" He cried, this time with confidence and joy present in his voice. He walked swiftly to the creature in the shadows, glad to see such a comforting presence outside. But as he walked closer he saw that it wasn't a dog, it was instead a creature that struck fear into the hollows of his heart. The boy tripped, and within seconds the dog was upon him. And there was pain, hot flashes of burning red pain that forced the boy to faint into blackness.

In the house, upstairs, the mother awoke, hearing growls and shrieks of pain from the yard. She bolted to the window, and upon seeing the horror outside, began shrieking as well. The father awoke in a panic, wondering what had caused this screaming, but the mother could only scream one word in response. Remus.

~Cesso~

Two young boys raced through a house, their footsteps shaking the portraits on the walls. Several of them awoke, and yelled down the hall after the children, but they did not heed their words. A large shriek, made by a very real human, was the only thing that made them stop.

"Quick! " The older of the two whispered, an urgent tone rarely heard to his words. "Get in here before she comes so you don't get in trouble!" He said, as he shoved his brother into a small closet most would overlook.

"Sirius Black!" His mother turned the corner mere seconds after the closet door closed. "I expected better of you! Dung bombs in the punch bowl? Why? If it wasn't your birthday I'd have half a mind to punish you! Honestly! The things I let you get away with! Where's Regulus? You need to get back to the party. For goodness sakes it's being held for you!"

She continued on her rant, never ceasing, and Sirius closed his eyes, letting her words wash over him. As unpleasant as her shrieking was it was ultimately more pleasant than attending his party. There were girls invited, girls! Mere seconds before he and Regulus had thrown the dung bombs into the punch the girls had suggested playing spin the bottle. Sirius knew that he couldn't avoid kissing girls forever, one day he would have to marry one of them, but he wanted to avoid it as long as possible.

With a start Sirius realized that his mother had stopped her lecture and was looking at him expectantly. He, however, had no idea what she wanted him to say. But luck was on his side that day it would seem, just as his mother opened her mouth to begin again, Andromeda rounded the corner and took in the situation.

"Ah! Sirius!" she said, cutting his mother off while grabbing his arm. "we were just looking for you!"

Andromeda was Sirius' cousin, and one if the few people in the family that he could stand. She was older than him, 5 years to be exact, but she had taught him more about the world then anyone else in the family had, and most of the things she taught him would make his mother's head spin. She had even snuck him out of the house a few times under the pretense of visiting someone else, so Sirius had a taste of life outside of his parents. Andromeda had told Sirius the truths of the world, that blood status didn't matter, that everyone really was equal. The things she told him overwhelmed him at time, but she warned him that he could never mention his views to anyone else in his family if he wanted to stay in this family. The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

He was shaken out of his thoughts as he heard Andy say to Mrs. Black "Do you mind if I borrow him? The Malfoy's wanted to speak to him." Mrs black stopped her protest as a satisfied glint came into her eyes.

"Yes yes, by all means take him! Sirius, just don't embarrass the family." Mrs Black hurried to say, always terrified that Sirius would cause the family shame with his antics.

Andromeda led Sirius away, and quickly pulled him into the study as they passed it, ignoring his yelp of surprise and protest.

"What?" he said, his sullen eyes forming a pout at his cousin.

"You don't really have to meet the Malfoys. I just said that to get you out of her lecture before she exploded. You really need to learn not to do anything so drastic Sirius!"

"I didn't do anything that drastic! And it's my party, I thought!"

"Sirius, you know as well as I do that nothing is ever for the individual, and everything is done to further the family. But it's every man for himself to keep from falling into this family's traps."

"Huh?" Sirius said, he was newly turned nine, and didn't focus well enough to understand what Andromeda was trying to get him to comprehend.

"Sirius, what on earth possessed you to explode the punch?" She said, her tone stern, but a twinkle in her eyes alerted Sirius to the fact that she wasn't really mad, and in fact was more proud then anything else.

"They wanted me to play spin the bottle! Girls Andy, girls!"

She tried to hide her smile, but failed, and allowed a small chuckle to escape her lips. "Was that really the best solution?"

"Yes."

"Really?" She said, one eyebrow raised.

"What would you have suggested instead?"

"I can't say that I've ever been in that situation, but I'll be sure to let you know if I think of anything. Where did you get the dung bombs?"

"From Uncle Alphard"

"I thought you used them at the Christmas dinner?"

"I used Regulus' today!"

"Sirius? Where's Regulus?" Andromeda's face was alarmed, she hadn't seen the younger of the brothers for quite some time before the punch incident.

Sirius, laughing at the expression on her face, said "He's in a closet don't worry! But it's one that shuts with magic so you'll need to get him out."

"All right" Andromeda sighed, "but then you have to return to the party, you have an image to uphold and have some girls to kiss!"

Sirius groaned, and Andromeda, laughing, had to grab his arm to keep him from running off again, as the two hurried off to save Regulus and keep up appearances as members of such a prestigious family. Toujours pur.

~Cesser~

"Done!" A green eyed boy cried, as he finished the last page of his math work. Despite the fact that he belonged to a magical family his parents insisted that he do plenty of studying in regular subjects before he received his wand. Therefore, he studied at home with a tutor, eagerly counting off the days until he turned eleven and could finally do real magic. He did as much work as any muggle child had to do, and although he resented having to do so much learning, he did learn fast and was quite bright. With this final page of math done his father promised him a surprise, and he was hoping for tickets to a Quidditch game, where his favorite team would be playing. His mind wandered, thinking about being a wizard. He wondered if he'd be any good at magic, he had showed sure signs of being magical, but at the age of six, and was worried that when he finally got to Hogwarts this would be held against him. So he wandered out of the room, part of his brain wishing to find his father and show him his work, the other part wishing to see his mother and have her reassure him.

His feet led him to the kitchen where his mother was baking cookies, and took a minute to grab one that was sitting on a plate already.

"Mum," he started, his mouth full of cookie, "do you think that I'll be a good wizard?"

"Of course you'll be! Don't talk with your mouth full." she scolded, handing him a napkin and brushing a few crumbs off of his shirt.

"Really though, do you think I'll be?" he said, finishing his cookie and reaching for another.

"Yes, I really do. You're smart enough to learn anything that you put your mind to. Don't eat another, we'll be having dinner soon."

"Ok." He said, wiping his hands on his pants, "Where's Dad? I finished my math"

"I think he's in the study" his mother replied. "If you find him tell him that we'll be having dinner in a half hour. I think he has a surprise for you."

"I hope it's Quidditch tickets!" he cried, as he gave his mom a smile and ran from the room to find his father.

Unsurprisingly, the surprise was two tickets to the game, and the boy and his father soon found themselves leaving, the boy being taken by side-along apparition, and finding seats with an excellent view of the field.

"Dad!" The boy shouted, jerking at his father's sleeve some time into the game, "Did you see that!"

"Yes James," his father replied, an amused grin covering his worn face. The teams were in top form, equally matched in talent and the father expected that the game would go on for quite a few hours still.

"Wow!" the boy cried again, accidentally flinging his arm into a boy and a mother crossing in front of him. "Oops! Sorry!"

The boy James had just hit attempted to smile as he tried to pick up his spilled treats.

"It's fine" he said, "No harm done. "

"I'm James! What's your name?"

"Peter- " he looked as though he may say more, but was cut off by another yell from James.

"Spectacular! This is great! Why don't you sit here?" The last comment was directed towards Peter and the nervous looking women accompanying him, who looked as though they were about to go off to their own seats, and pointed to the handful of empty seats beside James.

"I..." Peter started, then trailed off, looking at his mother expectantly.

"I suppose it would be all right" Peter's mother said, looking a bit anxious as she said this, as though someone might contradict her at any moment.

"I'm ten, but I turn eleven it in March! How old are you? Are you going to Hogwarts? Did you see that goal? It's amazing!" James said, firing off questions faster then Peter could respond.

"I'm ten also, and I'll be eleven in May. Yes, I'll go to Hogwarts. This is a good game." Peter said, his face a bit flushed as he tried to keep up with the conversation, he often got nervous in these types of situations, a habit he inherited from his mother.

"Do you collect chocolate frog cards? I've found a couple of really rare kinds. What position do you like on the team best? I think I'd be a chaser if I could be anything. Do you fly?"

The questions came fast, and Peter struggled to remember all of them and answer them in the right order.

"No, but I love chocolate frogs. What have you found? I guess seeker is cool. I don't fly that well, but I do fly."

The two boys continued with their conversation and gradually learned about each other. After the game was over James asked his father if Peter could come and visit sometime, and with a grin James invited Peter over the next Saturday. Peter shyly replied that he would love to come, after a confirming nod from his mother, and left the game, emboldened by his success of making his first friend.

James was thrilled that he had met another wizard. Although his family was pureblooded, and he knew no shortage of other wizarding children, most were older then he was, and therefore not nearly as fun to play with. His parents were a little older then most parents of ten year olds, and most of his parent's friend's children who he saw were either out of school, or close. This all meant that Peter was actually the only wizarding child his age he had met. He smiled, thinking about knowing at least one person when he got to Hogwarts, and hoped that Peter would be in Gryffindor also. James was sure that he was going to Gryffindor. His parents hadn't told him much about Hogwarts but they had told him what the houses were and what they represented. Gryffindors were brave, and loyal. Plus all of his family, and his dad especially, had been in Gryffindor. James looked up to his dad more than anyone else, and he hoped he could be just like his dad when he grew up. But, not quite as old. And more active. Maybe he could be just like his dad, but also a professional Quidditch player?

~Cessare~

A loud thump followed by a shriek woke up Peter, and he awoke with quite a start. He hurried out of his room, after grabbing his slippers and robe, and made his way downstairs.

"Mum?" He said in a worried voice, not seeing his mother in her traditional seat in the living room. She occupied the red rocker in the corner every morning and read the paper, wearing her worn slippers and her hair still in rollers. Once Peter woke up she would rush about to make breakfast for the two of them, and Peter would try not to feel the absence of his father, and his mother would try to not set a third plate on the table.

"Peter!" His mother shrieked as he came into the room. "Oh, Peter, there's a mouse! A mouse! Quick! Do something!"

Peter allowed himself a smile, his mother's fears was a never-ending source of amusement for him, and the sight of mother trying to stand on top of the old rocker was something one didn't have the privilege to see every day.

"Of course Mum, I'll get it." He said, going into the kitchen to grab a bowl or bag, or maybe some cheese. Anything he thought would be useful he grabbed, and made his way back to the living room where his mother was still shrieking. He spent the better part of the morning trying to catch the mouse, small and black, and it quickly hid anytime he saw Peter approaching. His mother yelled the whole time, yelping and scaring the mouse back into the corners. Finally, close to lunchtime, he managed to chase the mouse near enough to the door that he could chase it out with a broom, and shut the door with a sense of self-earned satisfaction.

"So Mum," he began, turning to her, winded and hoarse from shrieking, "do you suppose we could have breakfast?"

On Peter's birthday he was awoken by the sun creeping in his windows, the smell of bacon tickling his nose, and with a grin walked down to the kitchen. There his mother had broken tradition, having already made his breakfast, and the smell of cake in the oven.

"Happy Birthday Peter." She said, a smile playing on her lips.

"G'morning Mum!" He said, glad that his day had started out so well. He was eleven, finally! This was the second most important birthday of his life, and had suspected that this day would never come, that turning eleven was possibly just an elaborate trick that everyone was trying to pull on him. An elaborate plan with a reward too good to be true, and everyone was just going to jump out and say "fooled you!" when he finally got to the day, and find himself twelve, and that eleven was made up, and skipped. On reflection Peter recognized that this was quite foolish of him to think, and possibly one of the most ridiculous theories that he had ever made up, but he supposed that he was worried it would happy any ways.

After breakfast he spent most of the day looking towards the window, just hoping that his owl would arrive soon. He had showed signs of magic, but it was always possible that it wasn't quite enough for an admission for Hogwarts. Hogwarts was another thing he had a theory about, he was suspicious that it was too good to be true, despite assurances from his mother. But by lunchtime a brown speckled owl was seen crashing onto the table, and spilling his soup.

"An owl! My letter!" Peter cried, as he grabbed the letter from the owl, proudly reading the words that confirmed he could attend Hogwarts. So Hogwarts wasn't made up after all! Well, it probably wasn't. He'd have to wait until he saw the school itself to be sure, of course. But all signs were suggesting it really truly was real. He hoped he'd be in Gryffindor, that's where James had said he wanted to go, and he would be ever so glad to know at least one person. But he didn't think he had many Gryffindor-like qualities, he supposed he'd just be in Hufflepuff or something similar. He sighed, but he would think about houses more on the other day. For now he had a letter to read, and he opened it to see the words

HOGWARTS SCHOOL _of_ WITCHCRAFT _and_ WIZARDRY

Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,_

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizar_ds)_

Dear Peter Pettigrew,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Excitedly he grabbed his mother's arm, showing her the list of required items.

"Could we go today? Could we? Could we?" He said, his eyes dancing in a joy rarely seen.

"Yes, yes, of course we can. Just let me grab my things." His mother replied, and soon the two of them were on their way to Diagon Alley, Peter dancing around his mother excitedly the whole while.

~Cese~

A knock at the door of the modest household one evening broke the heavy silence that was held over inhabitants. They no longer laughed together as they once did, and the boy was never read stories before he went to sleep at night. The knock at the door startled them, almost everyone jumped at the sound. When the door was opened, it revealed a wizard, dressed in purple robes with a long white beard.

"Mr. Lupin," he started, a smile in his eyes as he pulled something from his pocket, "I have a letter to give you."


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

Remus Lupin shuffled his feet nervously as he stood on platform 9 and ¾. He had gotten there an hour early so that he would be able to get his own compartment. Even though he had arrived so early there were many other people at the station, and he wasn't used to being around so many people. Going to Diagon Alley last week had been the first time in six years that he had seen any one other than his parents, since his relatives were too afraid to visit him after his accident. He gave his mother a tightlipped smile as she hugged him good-bye. Finally the moment of his departure had arrived. His mother tried desperately not to cry, as she whispered in his hear to have a wonderful time and make friends. His father gave him an impatient nod, wishing to get back to his work, and reminded him never to let anyone know, and to stay away from anyone suspicious. Don't let anyone get to close. Remus nodded in return to his father, gave his mother one last smile, promised to write, and walked onto the train.

On the train he dragged his trunk along, his muscles protesting. With the full moon being less than a week away he was rapidly loosing strength, and all he really wanted to do was sleep. But any potential friends would think him pathetic if he couldn't go half a day without a nap, so he couldn't sleep. He found an empty compartment near the rear of the train, but lacked the ability to lift his trunk up onto the rack overhead. So he made do with putting it on the floor and pulling out a book on magical cartography. It had always been rather an interest of his, reading maps. Since he wasn't allowed to visit anywhere he would read stories about other places and spend entire evenings pouring over maps of foreign lands.

He tried to stay awake, he really did, due to the fact that he was worried about what people would think about him falling asleep on the train. His mother had told him to make friends, but his father had warned him against getting close to anyone. So he supposed that he should only make friends with children who wouldn't ask questions, and seclude himself a little. With that last thought he fell off to sleep, only to be awoken several hours later.

~Cesso~

James Potter was bored. Although he had just met a fellow troublemaker (of the Black family!) and had Peter to talk to, he was bored. Some Ravenclaw 2nd year girls had arrived in his compartment a few minutes after the greasy git and the red-head had left, and all they wanted to do was talk about girl stuff. Ugh. They had fawned over Sirius and him, and awed at Peter. It was so annoying it was all James could do not to just leave. Actually though, he did just leave. He excused himself to go to the bathroom, but really left in search to find another compartment. After a bit of exploring he found one that only had one person in it, some sleeping kid, and hurried back to extract Sirius and Peter.

James burst back into the compartment, interrupting some girls absolutely fascinating story, startling everyone else.

"Peter! Sirius!" He shouted, causing a blond girl to squeal in surprise. "I found him!" He turned to the leader of this small clan of Ravenclaws and said "Sorry, but we've been looking for a friend of ours all morning. Now we need to go meet him, but thanks for talking to us for so long."

Once the three were out in the hallway Sirius gave him a high-five and shouted in joy quite loudly, and congratulated James on an ingenious escape.

"So where is this compartment?" Peter said, "and whose this friend of ours?"

James grinned wide, showing all of his pearly whites. "I have no clue who he is, but he's sleeping. Onward!"

When the three arrived at the compartment they let themselves in quietly, taking great pains not to wake up the sleeping boy. James noticed the trunk on the floor and motioned to Sirius to help him hoist it overhead, along with the trunks the three had dragged with them. The three sat on the floor then, playing a game of exploding snap, only whispering. Even when the snack lady arrived they were quiet, and shushed at her for being too loud. The three didn't even know the boys name yet, but they had already taken on the role of protectors. Something about his slight frame and short stature conjured up a sense of brotherly protection that none of them knew that they had, and all would vehemently deny if ever asked. It was only several hours later, when the sky began to get dark and a prefect stopped by to warn them that they had about two hours until they reached Hogwarts, did they wake the sleeping boy.

~Cessare~

One thing that Peter Pettigrew was good at was observing others. This talent of his was often overlooked however, due to his tendency to get flustered when asked questions or put in a situation where several people were listening to him. But in every situation he was put in, he continued to observe and collect information about every person he met. James, he decided, was loud. He wasn't loud to seek attention though, he simply was loud because that was how he was. The attention was just an added bonus. He was very amiable, but judged quickly leaving very little point in arguing with him. Sirius was a whole other story though. He didn't really care to be loud, he was only loud to get attention, being loud was what he had taught himself to do. Peter had observed this particular trait as he argued with some member of his family(cousin?) about being allowed to sit with other children his age, he had been loud to cause a spectacle, and he had won the argument. Rather effective if you asked Peter, but he supposed no one planned to ask him.

When James had first brought the two into the new compartment Peter had immediately started observing and judging the sleeping boy. He first noticed the scars on the boys hands, and noticed that even though the train was plenty warm he was shivering in his sleep. He slept fitfully, though that seemed to have nothing to do with the noise level of exploding snap, it seemed more to do with something else, something harder to guess then noise levels. Peter decided that he would have to think about that one more, maybe it had something to do with the locations the train passed? Either way, he was confused and decided to ignore the fact.

A prefect came into the room, and Peter decided that he was irritated. Probably at having to preform prefect duties rather then spend time with his friend. Peter deduced that he probably had been planning a game before he had to go and talk to the first years, since he held a pack of cards in his left hand. As soon as the prefect left James announced that they needed to wake the sleeping boy, and looked around expectantly.

"I'll do it." Sirius offered, then saying "How do you wake someone up without jumping on them?"

James snorted, and then thought. "I dunno..maybe just shake his shoulder or something? Throw water on his face? Talk loudly?"

"I think the shaking his shoulder is a good plan" Peter suggested, but he was at as much of a loss as the other two. "But be careful, it looks like his shoulder might hurt him. Maybe you should shake his left arm?"

The two started at Peter in something akin to amazement, and confusion.

"How do you know that?" Sirius asked.

"See the way he's sleeping on his side, with his right arm curled up a little? He probably hurt it and doesn't want to put his weight on it."

"Do you notice this kind of thing a lot?" James asked, his eyes shining with something Peter couldn't identify.

"I suppose so.." Peter trailed off, a little uncomfortable being held under such scrutiny.

"Brilliant!" Sirius exclaimed, as he walked over to the sleeping boy and slowly shook his left shoulder.

~Cese~

As Sirius Black shook the sleeping boy's shoulder, the first thing he noticed was how small he was. His shoulder seemed to weight nothing. Of course when he had first seen the boy he had noticed that the boy was small, in a sickly sort of way, but he hadn't thought much about it. But now that Sirius was shaking his shoulder he was struck with the knowledge that this boy was very small, painfully so. Sirius wished that he had had the foresight to save some sweets from the trolley for him.

The boy awoke with a start, his eyes wide and afraid, as though being awoken from sleep was something worrisome and someone may hurt him soon. His wide eyes took in the sight of the boys and cards littered on the floor and he relaxed visibly, his breathing slowing and straitening himself on the bench.

"Bonjour!" Sirius said, sticking his hand in the boys, and shaking it with much vigor. He rather enjoyed using French, his mother had insisted that he learn it from a young age. Sirius used it often around other people often due to the fact that it confused them, but he botched his words and pronunciations around his family as often as he could. It was an agreeable sort of condition he supposed.

"Hullo" the sleeping boy, now awoken, replied. He still looked a little shocked to see so many others where he had previously been secluded.

"James Potter" James said, offering the boy a chocolate frog, "the rude French one is Sirius, and he's Peter." This was accompanied with a punch in the shoulder from Sirius, and a jab towards Peter.

"Remus Lupin..." The sleeping boy, Remus apparently, replied. He took the chocolate frog and gave James a weak smile. Sirius got the impression that he didn't get out much, though he supposed that Remus was the agreeable sort, and Sirius immediately challenged James to a thumb war in response to the "rude French one" comment.

"So how long have I been sleeping? When did lot get here?" Remus asked, ignoring the shouts of James and Sirius, it seemed he decided that it was best just to continue as though nothing happened.

"I have no clue how long you slept, but we all got here when Ravenclaws invaded our old compartment. About 2 hours I suppose?" Sirius asked, while tackling James.

"What house d'you think you'll be in?" James asked Remus, apparently the fiasco that this question had caused last time hadn't fazed James at all.

"I'm not really sure, I'm just glad I can go to Hogwarts at all.." Remus trailed off again, biting his lip as though in deep thought. "You?"

"We're all going to Gryffindor!" James replied, and Sirius felt a wave of relief that James had decided he was worthy of something more than being Slytherin scum. "I suggest you join us there! Are you muggle-born or something? Why so glad you can come?"

Sirius' interest was piqued now as well, he didn't think the boy was muggle-born since he vaguely recognized the surname Lupin. In fact...

"No, Lupin's a pureblooded surname, right? Your dad married a muggle though, right?"

Remus looked shocked that someone would know that, and James and Peter were giving him curious looks as well.

"Right." Remus replied after a short bit, "My Mum's a muggle. How do you know?"

"I have the creepiest family. Ever!" Sirius proclaimed, wishing now that he hadn't said anything, it would appear that knowing all pureblooded surnames wasn't a talent widely recognized. "Do you play exploding snap?"

~Cesser~

The four boys exited the train, looking around in confusion as where to go. A booming voice started calling for the first years to come though, and the boys situated themselves into one boat, with a large bit of splashing from Sirius and James.

"Knock it off!" Remus reprimanded, "You'll tip the boat. I don't fancy getting wet you know."

No sooner had he said that then the boat actually did tip, and the four found themselves treading water.

"I can't swim" Peter wailed.

"Here grab my arm Pete" James called, swimming over to where Peter was. "Sirius, you all right mate?"

"I'm fine, Remus are you ok?" Sirius asked. After a moment of silence he asked again, "Remus?"

"Oi, Lupin where are you?" James shouted. The boys could no longer see any of the other boats, and it seemed that no one had noticed their spill.

"Remus Lupin!" Sirius called, and the three boys began chanting his name and trying to find him.

"I'm all right, don't worry. I got our boat back. I don't know how you managed it but it almost sunk, and it drifted quite a bit away." Remus' reappearance, along with the boat's return, caused large shouts from James and Sirius, and a muted cry from Peter.

They all piled in, and finally they saw the castle, all emitting the expected gasps of excitement and awe. They scrambled out of the boat when it finally reached the castle, noticing no other first years were around anymore, and ran to the front doors, Remus struggling to keep up and Peter protesting loudly.

"..might want to freshen..." a witch was saying as they opened the doors, soaking wet and startling the rest of the first years, their appearance cutting off the witch's speech.

"Hullo" James and Sirius said in tandem, flashing her identical grins.


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter 2**

"Black, Sirius. " Professor McGonagall called, shouting out the third name on the list of first years. Narcissa and Andy looked on to Sirius from the Slytherin table, Narcissa looked as though she expected Sirius to sit down beside her at any moment. But Andromeda was giving him a different look, one that implied that he would simply suffer if he was put in the house of the snakes. Sirius looked back at James, who gave him an encouraging smile. Remus gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder, and Peter gave him a thumbs up. And with those last few hints of friendship and encouragement, Sirius stepped up to the stool and put the musty old hat on.

_ "A Black? But not a Slytherin Black, eh?" _

"I don't want to be in Slytherin" Sirius thought desperately, panicking.

_ "No, you don't have anything that it would take to be in Slytherin. You're loyal, maybe too loyal, trusting of friends. Maybe Hufflepuff? An astounding memory, but not as much wisdom. So not Ravenclaw. Not always honest, so no for Hufflepuff. But you're very brave to defy your family in so many ways, and I can tell that this defiance will only get tougher as you get older. You won't back down though, so I guess we'll have to say___GRYFFINDOR!"

With a sigh of relief, Sirius pulled off the hat, into a stunned silence from the Great Hall. For a second Sirius worried, maybe he should have insisted that he would have made a great Slytherin? But James started clapping, and soon everyone else recovered enough for Sirius to go and sit down at the table of the lions.

~Cesser~

"You can do this. You'll be fine. Don't worry about the people staring at you, at some point they all were stared at as well. Right." Remus thought to himself, as he was walking up to put on the ragged hat. Carefully, he sat down on the stool, and awaited the hats decision.

"Oh my oh my! What an interesting mind. You're quite different. Very much so. Dumbledore managed to let you come? Curious. I wonder.."

"Please don't tell." Remus thought, worried that he would be kicked out of Hogwarts before he had even been sorted.

"Of course I won't. Let's think here...well, you've got the brains for Ravenclaw. But you won't want them, they're far too smart. They'll figure it out in an instant. Hufflepuff is very tolerant, but you wouldn't feel at home in Hufflepuff. You can't always be as honest as they'll expect you to be. However, you are very brave. So brave to come all this way. Yes. I think it will have to be GRYFFINDOR!"

Remus scurried off to sit beside Sirius, grateful for the applause, but all the while wishing that they would just ignore him and go on to sort the next person. He sat at the table and watched with interest as a second girl, Mary MacDonald, was sorted into Gryffindor and took a place beside Lily Evans at the table. After a few more students, the next name called was

~Cesso~

"Pettigrew, Peter." the Professor shouted. Peter gave James a weak smile, and looked in a panic over to the Gryffindor table where Remus and Sirius sat already. So he had to be in Gryffindor. James would be in Gryffindor too, they would all be friends forever. Peter was sure of it. So he walked up to the hat and put it on his head.

"You want to be in Gryffindor?"

"Yes. I'm brave and all of my friends are there." Peter replied, wishing that the hat would just call out Gryffindor already.

"Let's see here...you're very cunning. People underestimate you. So maybe you'd be good for Slytherin. You have the ambition for it, a tendency to put your own neck first. But, you're very adamant about your friendships. Confident in them. If you really want it, I suppose you are brave enough. Yes. GRYFFINDOR!"

Peter gave a wide smile at that, and ran over to the table to sit across from Remus, beside another first year girl who had just been sorted. James was still left to be sorted, but he was confident that James would be a Gryffindor. Out of the four of them James really had the most Gryffindor like qualities, James and Sirius both. But Sirius with such a family, it was a bit of a surprise to really be sitting with him at the Gryffindor table. To be sitting with friends.

~Cese~

"Potter, James." Professor McGonagall yelled for the first time. If James had his way though, he thought, with a few pranks he'd be sure it wouldn't be the last time his name was shouted in the hall. He flashed his friends a brilliant smile, and confidently sat down to be sorted.

"Well this is easy. Very confident, very brave. Easiest one I've had to sort all day! You're a shoo-in for GRYFFINDOR!"

James smiled, it was exactly where he had always thought he would be, and exactly where he wanted to be. He had had an awfully short sorting compared to the other Gryffindors, James would have to ask what they all took so long for. But it didn't matter now, he supposed, they all were in Gryffindor.

James sat down beside Peter, and across from Sirius, noticing that the redhead from the train was in Gryffindor. The greasy haired one was in Slytherin though, so at least he wouldn't have to deal with him. On a second glance, James realized that the redhead was very pretty when she wasn't angry. But he quickly shook those thoughts out of his head, and worked on planning to get a dungbomb on the Professor's table before the meal was over.

~Cessare~

By the end of the sorting and meal, four boys and three girls had been sorted into Gryffindor. Two dungbombs had been launched into the Professor's soup, although no one was really quite sure how they had gotten there. After they exploded, the meal was ended early, since no one wanted to eat with the smell. The four boys were hurried up to the Gryffindor tower then, and shown to a dormitory with four beds with lavish hangings. Trunks were already laid at the foot of the beds, placing Remus beside the window, and Peter next to the door. James was next to Peter, and Sirius between James and Remus. They all smiled at their positions, all content with where they had been placed. But they were tired, even Remus with his long nap on the train, and were ready to sleep. Quickly they changed into pajamas, Remus climbing behind his bed hangings to get changed, and all settled on their respective beds. Before too long, James and Peter had fallen asleep, lightly snoring. But Sirius and Remus lay awake for much longer afterwards. Sirius was frightened by his family's reaction the next day, since he knew that Narcissa had already owled his parents with the news. But being tired the next day wouldn't do him any good, and soon he fell asleep.

Remus was still awake long after Sirius had left to the land of slumber though. He had never slept in a room with someone else before, so hearing three other boys sleeping was a bit unnerving. But the real reason, although he was loathe to admit it, was that he was afraid of the dark. No matter how tired his body was, and how much his eyelids drooped, he just couldn't fall asleep. So with the fear of a young child, he left the safety of his bed to get to his wand. Now that he was at Hogwarts he couldn't go on using wandless magic, so, climbing back into bed, he whispered a quiet "lumos".

With the light of his wand keeping him safe, Remus finally felt his tired body fall asleep. For the next few hours the four boys slept in peace, each glad for the rest before an exhausting day of classes. But they were awoken far too early in the morning, by a shrieking owl.


	4. Chapter Three

**AN: Hi guys! I realized that I haven't actually written an authors note at all for this yet, so I thought I would! I don't own Harry Potter, blah blah blah, all that stuff. Thanks for reading this story! And thanks those of you who reviewed! Sorry I didn't upload a chapter before now, but I have one up now! I'll try to get another one up Wednesday or Thursday, and I'll continue trying to get one up every other day or so. Thanks for reading! I hope you like it!**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>

In the early morning of September second, Sirius was already awake. He had never been one for sleeping in, and so by six he was already up, even if he had gone to sleep rather late. He may be tired later, but for now there wasn't much he could do about it. He was up, and that was that. Shortly after he had started digging through James' trunk for more dungbombs, a large owl shrieked through the window.

Sirius shrieked, and banged his head on the lid of the trunk, then cursed loudly. Remus jumped out of bed, eyes nervously darting everywhere, holding his wand in one hand looking for the source of the noise. James woke up lifting an eyebrow in confusion, behaving more calmly than everyone else, much like he was used to waking up to loud noises. Peter heard the noise, and promplty rolled out of bed, adding his own howls to the owl's when he hit the floor.

When Sirius had finished helping Peter off of the floor and reassuring Remus that they weren't being attacked, he turned around to see whose owl it was, and promptly swore again.

"Sirius!" Remus said, looking appalled that he would know such words and use them, which just caused James to burst out laughing. Peter looked a little shocked as well.

"Remus!" Sirius responded, in a tone of mock surprise. "Relax, it's acceptable right now. It's a letter! From my mum!"

"That's not a letter! That's a howler! Why would she send you a howler?" James asked curiously.

"A howler?" Peter contributed. "Open it quick then! Before it gets even worse!"

"Right! Right! I'm getting it!" Sirius yelled, leaping over a James' trunk and his bed to reach the owl. "I'm getting it!"

And with a large bang, the letter opened, revealing the shrieking voice of Walburga Black.

"SIRIUS BLACK! HOW DISGRACEFUL! YOUR WHOLE LIFE, JUST TRYING TO PUSH LIMITS. YOU NEVER COULD DO ANYTHING RGHT ANYWAYS. BUT NOW YOU CAN'T EVEN GET SORTED INTO SYTHERIN? HOW PATHETIC! YOU'RE A DISGRACE TO THE WHOLE FAMILY, AND THE LESTRANGES ARE CONSIDERING BACKING OUT ON BELLATRIX BECAUSE OF YOUR DISGRACE. YOU HAVE CAUSED AND CONTINUE TO CAUSE SHAME ON THE WHOLE FAMILY. DON'T EXPECT TO COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, AND I FORBID YOU FROM OWLING REGULUS. I WON'T HAVE YOU CORRUPTING HIM AS WELL. YOUR COUSINS WILL BE WATCHING TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU DON'T BECOME TOO FRIENDLY WITH ANY OF THE BLOOD TRAITORS, AND I FORBID YOU FROM TALKING TO ANY MUDBLOODS. IT'S EXPECTED THAT YOU WILL GO TO THE HEADMASTER TO TRY AND CORRECT THIS MISTAKE. YOU'RE NO BETTER THAN A HOUSE-ELF WITH THE THINGS YOU GET INTO. TRY NOT TO BE SUCH A DISGRACE!"

The letter then burst into spectacular flames, catching the the blanket on Sirius' bed on fire. Sirius lept about, shrieking unintelligibly, James laughing in a manner of mild amusement mingled with a look of disgust. Peter started yelling as well as the blanket continued to burn, and Remus was looking as though he was in great pain.

Sirius looked over at Remus and shouted "Do something about it!" Remus calmly nodded, and a great look of concentration appeared on his face. Suddenly, the flames were out.

"Why me?" Remus asked, after Peter had stopped yelling and Sirius had thrown the owl out of the window.

"You put the flames out, didn't you?" Sirius said, at the same time James asked "Was that wandless magic?"

"I suppose I did, and yes, it was. But why would you assume that I could put it out in the first place?" Remus replied, as he walked over to the clock to find the time.

"You just seem like that kind of person. You can control wandless magic?" Sirius replied.

"I'm not really supposed to do it...but I guess so. Why is your mum so upset about Gryffindor?" Remus said, clearly uncomfortable with this turn of topics, and trying to change the topic.

Sirius, however, was not willing to let the topic go. "Why aren't you supposed to?"

"Just let it go, Sirius." Remus replied.

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"Why shouldn't you?"

"Why don't you just let it go?"

"Make me!"

"What, are we three now?"

"I know you are, but what am I?"

"Just let it go Sirius! If Remus doesn't want to talk about it it's fine. I noticed you don't want to talk about your family, and he's not prying about that. So why not let it go?" James burst in, eager to end the argument.

"Thank you James. We'll need to be down to breakfast soon, so we should get dressed." Remus responded, turning to his trunk to pull out a robe.

James walked over to his trunk, then, noticing that it was already opened, frowned. "Hey, where are my dungbombs?"

Sirius smiled, but didn't say anything, instead just tucked them into his school bag to save for later.

~Cesser~

As the four Gryffindor boys walked down to eat, Peter noticed a few new things about his roommates. James and Sirius walked confidently, although they both looked as though they were looking out for someone. Remus walked with his shoulders hunched, arms crossed in front of himself protectively, a tentative stance to his walk. He also tended to fuss with his robe and the few tears in the sleeves. Peter supposed that they were second-hand and he was ashamed of it. Sirius also fussed with his robes, touching the Gryffindor crest every so often, his face lighting up with a ghost smile every time he did. James smiled at every person he saw, and talking animatedly to his friends. Sirius also talked quite happily, but a worried expression would pass over his face every so often. Remus constantly had the worried expression.

As they walked into the Great Hall, they were immediately assaulted by the scents of a wonderful breakfast. Peter happily filled his plate with everything in sight, Sirius and James did the same. But Remus, he noticed, only took a few slices of toast. But then Professor McGonagall came by with the schedules, and he took no more notice of the other's food.

"So we have charms first? That should be interesting." Remus said.

"Boooring!" James replied. "I want to go flying first!"

"Charms might be interesting. We could learn to charm the Slytherins hair red!" Sirius said, flashing Remus a smile at his disapproving look.

Remus just groaned and put his head down on the table, as Sirius grabbed Peter's schedule. After he grabbing at it for a few minutes he gave up, and just went back to eating.

Peter's mind wandered during the meal, and he didn't pay much attention to the conversation. He wondered what Sirius was planning to do with the dungbombs, but he supposed he wouldn't be let in on the plans since he wasn't supposed to know that Sirius had them. Maybe they would play a trick on one of the teachers again. That would be fun, Peter decided. For as long as Peter had known James, he had known James to be constantly playing pranks, and Sirius seemed to enjoy doing that as well. Being friends with them would obviously bring them plenty of mischief, and assumedly many detentions. But it was nice having friends. Peter hoped that it wasn't just an illusion that would disappear, he had long suspected that he would never have friends. Perhaps he was a bit paranoid...

"What else do we have today?" Peter asked during a lull in the conversation, finally having

"Transfiguration and potions. With the Slytherins! Remus, do you think that we could learn how to dye hair by potions?"

"No. At least, I severely hope not. I don't think that you have the attention span needed." Remus' tone was firm and absolute in his words.

"Let's prove him wrong!" James said, turning to Sirius, who grinned maniacally. But then Sirius caught sight of something and flinched, immediately ducking under the table. Peter looked around to see what it was, but the only thing he could see was two older girls making their way to the table. But upon further inspection, Peter realized that they were both from Slytherin, and bore a resemblance to Sirius. Did he have older sisters?

"Sirius." The blonde one said, fixing Sirius with a hard stare.

"Ah, Cissy! What a delight seeing you here! So glad we could run into each other!" Sirius replied, then immediately turned to the other girl saying, "Drommie! What an unexpected pleasure! So terribly sorry, but I must rush! Class to get to, people to see. You know the drill! So sorry, but bye!" On the last sentence Sirius stood up, and hastily grabbed James' and Peter's robes, giving Remus a frantic look that urged him to follow.

"Who were they?" Peter asked once they were in the hall.

"My cousins." Sirius replied, a scowl on his face. "Nasty girl, Cissy is. Andy is ok though, one of the only decent people in my family."

"Oh. Ok." Peter replied, deciding not to question Sirius any more, just in case his scowl became aimed at Peter. He did scowl very well.

Remus was looking at Sirius with a slight frown to his face, but appeared to have decided to let whatever it was go, and instead dug out his schedule.

"We have charms in... thirty minutes. So where do you suppose the room is?" Remus asked.

"We could try asking some older kids..." James said,

"But where would be the fun in that?" Sirius finished for him, echoing James' mischievous smile.

"Where would it be indeed?" Remus said, shaking his head in a defeated manner.

~Cese~

The four boys managed to find their way into the charms classroom, only ten minutes late. Remus gave a frown at being late already to the first class, and hoped that it wouldn't become a habit. James and Sirius seemed eager to make it one though...

"Oh! Hello boys!" A short adult called from the front of the room. Remus thought it would be most logical that he was the teacher, which would make him Professor Flitwick.

"Now, you would be our missing Gryffindor boys then, I suppose?" The professor continued. "Alright. Please take a desk. Now, I won't assign detention or take points from being late, but please do try not to make it a common occurrence. We won't be doing any magic today, we're just taking notes today. So there is no need for wands."

Remus took a desk next to Peter, at the back of the room, and diligently copied down notes for the rest of the lesson. James and Sirius whispered quietly to each other every so often, passing notes and often hitting other students with pieces of paper. But the minute any one would turn around to see who was doing it, the pair would write notes on the paper and look at the professor with an expression that almost fooled Remus, they looked so earnest in their studies. Remus suppressed a smile, but wondered idly if he should say something to them afterwards..

After the lesson, Remus tried to build up courage to yell at the pair for talking all during the lesson, but found that he couldn't bring himself to admonish anyone who would consider him a friend. So he walked in silence to Transfiguration, and wondered how he was a Gryffindor if he couldn't even yell at his friends.

They at least managed to get to Transfiguration on time, largely due to the fact that they followed the other first years there. They all sat in the back of the room, Remus taking the desk beside Peter again. Remus hoped that James and Sirius wouldn't talk during this lesson, Transfiguration would likely be a hard subject, and the professor didn't look like she would take kindly to their antics.

"Welcome class." Professor McGonagall started. "I am your Transfiguration teacher, as well as the head of Gryffindor house. Any problems or complaints you may have, you can see me about, and I will try to handle them." Here her eyes landed on Remus for a minute, but she continued her lecture. "You will all need to pay very close attention to succeed in this class. Transfiguration is a difficult subject, the most complex of all taught at Hogwarts. Only those who can work diligently will be able to transfigure objects correctly, and top marks will be awarded to those who will work hard at this subject. I do not appreciate any talking during class, and detentions will be handed out accordingly. For today's lesson we will be learning to transfigure matches into needles."

By the end of the lesson, Remus hated needles. And matches. He had managed to make progress on transfiguring it, but he was still very sick of seeing them and trying. James had managed to transfigure his quite easily, and Remus supposed that it was just something that James was naturally good at. Sirius had made about the same progress as Remus, and Remus thought that perhaps he would have made more progress had he not started poking the girl in front of him with James' needle. As it was, Sirius had gotten his first detention for annoying the girl, and when James protested that it was his needle and therefore should be punished also, he was given a detention with Sirius for Friday night. James and Sirius seemed quite proud of already getting one detention in the first day of classes, Remus was not as amused. Peter had had an awful time of transfiguring it, and still couldn't manage to understand even the basics of the lesson. Remus had promised to review it over with Peter later though, which the boy had positively beamed at hearing. He appeared to be as anxious to have friends as Remus was.

The boys had lunch after Transfiguration, and were pleasantly surprised to find that their lunch was every bit as grand as the feast the night before and breakfast that morning had been. Remus only took a bit of soup though, upset that his stomach was feeling queasy when such a nice meal was set out.

"Do you suppose that we'll get big meals like this every day?" Peter asked Remus.

"I suppose so. Hogwarts only has a few feasts each year though, last night was one of those feasts." Remus replied.

"Really? How do you know all of this stuff? You always have some interesting fact to go with the conversation."

"I read a lot, you pick up on a lot of stuff that way." Remus said, blushing a bit since he hadn't exactly wanted to reveal that reading was all he did at home. He'd rather that the other boys didn't think him some book-snob or something before they had even been at school for a week. But he was also a bit pleased that Peter had noticed a trait about him, he was glad that he hadn't completely faded into the wall as he was prone to doing.

"You have a tendency to notice stuff about people, don't you Peter?" Remus asked, remembering all of the obscure tidbits of information about those around them Peter had contributed to many discussions already.

Peter grinned, it was obvious that he was pleased with Remus noticing facts about him as well. "Yeah, I kind-of do. My mum always says it's good to notice the little details, that way I won't seem as dumb as she says I am."

"I don't think that you're very dumb, Peter. And being able to notice the little facts will help you more than seeing the big picture sometimes."

"Maybe." But it was clear that Peter wasn't convinced. But Remus didn't know what to say to convince him that the big picture wasn't always the main goal, so he just let it go, and instead checked the time, thinking about how needles looked just like the hands on his watch. Idly he wondered if he could transfigure the hands on his watch someday, but decided that trying to get his friends to potions on time may be a task that required more of his attention.

~Cesso~

Walking into the potions room for the first time was a shock for James. The teacher at the front of the room was a large man, cheerfully chatting to the pretty red-head, Evans. Giving Sirius a grin that suggested trouble, they sat in the back of the room. They had gotten away with talking during every other class during the day, and even though Sirius was from such a notoriously dark family, he didn't seem to act that way. He seemed to treat his family's traditions more like a laughing matter than anything else, and had confided into James that he had already kissed every girl in their first year Slytherin class, all before he was eight. James had laughed and teased him mercilessly about this, but secretly was a bit jealous. He had yet to kiss a girl, but he figured that since he had just barely turned into the double-digits he had some time to go.

"Hello class!" The professor greeted them. "I am Professor Slughorn, and I will be your potions teacher. Potions is a required subject until after your O.W.L.S., but if you don't do well enough on those, you won't be permitted to continue to your N.E.W.T.S. We will be brewing a potion today, so you can get out a cauldron and a few of these ingredients" a wave of his wand, and a list of ingredients appeared on the blackboard "from the storage cupboard while I call roll."

"Black" He started. "Sirius Black?"

"Here!" Sirius replied.

"Now, what are you doing in Gryffindor? I was sure that I would have been able to get you in my own house! You would be great in Slytherin I'm sure. Sad that the Gryffindors managed to snag you before I could...but you have a younger brother, yes?"

"Yeah. You'll probably get him."

"Good, good... Evans? Lily Evans?"

"Present, sir." Evans replied, and James found himself momentarily distracted as he watched her talk to the professor. When she talked, it wasn't just her lips moving. Her hands motioned, she moved from foot to foot. Watching her talk was almost like watching a person dance, he could have watched her talk forever and never heard a word. But girls...they were supposed to have cooties. Right?

"Potter? James Potter? Potter?" James winced as Sirius elbowed him, hard. Apparently his name had been being called for a while now.

"Right! Here!"

"Glad to hear that." Slughorn replied. "Your father is Charlus, correct?"

"Yes sir. You were his teacher too, right?"

"Yes I was! He never had a knack for potions though, but he has a job with the ministry now, correct?"

"Yes, he does."

"Good...good. I always thought that he would go far."

Slughorn continued to call roll, stopping every few names or so to comment on relatives of the family, or positions that the family held.

"I've heard that he collects students." James whispered to Sirius, bored with hearing about everyone's families.

"Collects them?" Sirius whispered back, ignoring Remus' disapproving look.

"Yeah. He goes about inviting the really talented or famous kids to parties, or to meet his friends and stuff like that I've heard. You know what I'm thinking?"

"It'd be brilliant to be collected by a professor? We could do no wrong in his eyes!"

"Let's work on it then. He already seems to like our families, so I think we're off to a good start. Think of all the rules we can break! You any good at potions?"

"I have a good memory, so I suppose so. You better be good if we'll be partners."

"Of course I am! What would make you think otherwise?"

"Shhh" a loud hiss came from James' right, and he stopped talking to discover what it was. It was Remus, hushing the pair now that Slughorn had evidently finished taking roll.

"Thanks" James mouthed back to Remus, who just rolled his eyes in response.

Brewing the potions was fairly easy for the rest of the day, and almost everyone was having success with it, until Sirius got bored. James was the first to notice, since they were partners, and he noticed as Sirius started fidgeting in his chair, playing with his quill, and cutting the ingredients into different shapes.

James nudged Sirius, trying to get him to pay attention to the potion again so that they could worm their way into being Sluggy's favorites, but he wasn't having much success. He started throwing ingredients at Sirius' head then, and he gave James a frown, apparently unhappy to have strange roots and other things in his hair.

"Come on Sirius, just pay attention for...twenty more minutes. Please?"

"I have a much better idea." Sirius said with a grin that would have worried anyone that wasn't James. It was a grin that clearly spelled misbehaving, a bit of danger, and plenty of excitement. James, obviously, was then interested in this plan.

"Oh? What is it?"

"Well...it involves your dungbombs, and the girls' cauldrons."

~Cessare~

By dinner of the first night, all of the boys were tired, but satisfied with how the first day had gone. Collectively, they so far had amassed 48 inches worth of charms essay to write, three matches still in need of being turned into needles, one needle, two detentions, and had used a dozen dungbombs. Three potions had been exploded, but miraculously, James and Sirius hadn't been caught. Remus advised them to switch away from dungbombs though, in case someone managed to remember that every time one exploded, they were in attendance. James had acknowledged the wisdom in this, Sirius had scoffed at that idea, and Peter had suggested that Remus would know some good spells for pranking. Remus turned bright red at this point, and refused to say any more on the matter. Sirius and James badgered him about it for the remainder of the night, until they all fell asleep. Sirius fell asleep with more ease than the night before, but Remus still stayed up for several hours, worrying about being discovered. But finally, all was quiet in the dorm, until the following morning. The morning, when a shriek, reminiscent of the shriek heard from the owl the day before, shattered the temporary peace in the dorm.


	5. Chapter Four

James was a bit annoyed. Two mornings in a row now, he had awoken to the loud shriek of the same ruddy owl, and two mornings he had listened to said owl deliver a howler to his new best mate. However, if Sirius didn't stop getting howlers, James wasn't sure how much longer he would want Sirius sleeping in the dorm.

When the howler finished shrieking, James yawned, and got out of bed. Then another occurrence occurred for the second morning in a row, he fell over his trunk, and discovered that someone had been rifling through it.

"Sirius?" James said, raising an eyebrow to assign Sirius blame. With a guilty look Sirius grinned back.

"Yes James? Would you like something? I have deduced this due to the fact that you have called my name in a questioning tone and raised your left eyebrow at me." James just rolled his eyes and replied with a "Oh nothing, nothing at all there, Sirius.", deciding that it wasn't quite worth getting into an argument over. James was

mischievous, but he was fairly laid back. And after the great surprise of the dungbombs in potions, he decided to trust Sirius', uh, "intuition", as Remus had dubbed it. Remus was sort of an odd fellow, James thought, as he watched Remus walk over to his trunk. Remus used big words, and it was almost like he was unused to being around kids, or just people in general. He was smart though, James had to admit. He hadn't missed the slight glint of enchantment when James had pulled out the dungbombs at dinner that first night, and he was even more thrilled when Remus had been able to suggest a spell to launch them. Hopefully he'd be willing to help with more pranks in the very near future... With a slight start, James looked at the clock and realized that they needed to be at breakfast soon, or they would be missing it. The final member of the room hadn't yet awoken though, so James decided that he could be elected for that task.

"Sirius? Can I have some of my dungbombs back?" James had a brilliant plan. He'd just throw one at Peter, and viola! He'd be awake!

"Sure. Oh.." Sirius replied, after tossing James one, and realizing that he had just admitted to stealing James' dungbombs again. James grinned, and hurriedly stuck one under Peter's bed, just as Remus walked back through the door.

"James!" Remus cried. "What are you doing?"

"I'm waking Peter up!" James replied, happy with his decision of how to wake Peter up.

"Do you recognize how much this will stink up the room?" "Oh." That's when the dungbomb exploded.

* * *

><p>After a hearty breakfast, they had their first class of herbology, which would then be followed by defense against the dark arts and history of magic. James hoped that defense against the dark arts would be cool, because honestly, who wanted to spend all day playing with plants or learning about history? Not him!<p>

Slowly the walked to the classroom where herbology was being held, due to the belief that first years on their second day of school were to irresponsible to work with real plants. James disagreed with this opinion, they're just plants! So he was extremely surprised when Sirius actually seemed to take an interest in the class.

'Why are you actually taking notes?' James scribbled on a note to him.

'I like the outdoors, I want to be able to get out there and out of this castle as soon as possible!'

'But notes? Really?'

'Actually I just didn't want to get on the teacher's bad side. Cissy told me that if you get on her bad side she'll make you clean out the greenhouses without magic.'

'Cissy? As in your cousin Narcissa?' 'That would be her!' 'Any possibility that she's joking? I mean, that kid in the front row fell asleep 20

minutes ago, and she hasn't yelled at him.' 'Maybe she's lying in wait.'

'Or maybe your just stupid.' 'It's "you're" you stupid prat.' 'Really? Your really going to correct my grammar?' ' "you're" going to make the same mistake twice?' 'Yes. I think class is almost over at least.' 'And on the bright side, we have detention tonight!' 'First detention of our lives! This is a monumental day.' 'Let's try and get Peter and Remus to go down with us next time though.' 'They're not going to get caught. No matter how stupid it is.' 'Why would you say that, Mr. Black?' 'Well Mr. Potter, Peter looks to scared to be caught. Maybe even too scared to try

it in the first place. Remus is too smart to be caught, and he has an innocent face. Us on the other hands...'

'That's a good point. Front men for our pranks!' 'Absolutely. You can try and convince them.' 'I don't think it will be that hard, Sirius. I mean, Remus did volunteer that spell for

the first prank, and I think that Peter wants to fit in.' 'That's a good point..'

'Wait, did she just assign homework?'

'Yes. Sixteen inches about the medicinal uses of muggle plants due in two weeks.'

'No way! How are we supposed to do that much of an essay? It's the 2nd day of school!'

'What do muggle plants even look like?'

"Really Sirius?" James said, as they walked out of class. "What do muggle plants look like?"

"Yeah? Have you ever seen one?" Sirius looked truly bewildered, and James couldn't help but laugh at his expression.

"Well, it's not due for another two weeks. We can try and teach you about muggle plants by then.." Remus replied, coming in once more as the voice of reason.

Sirius visibly brightened. "Oh yeah! Remus! Your mum's a muggle! You know about muggle plants!"

"Yes. I know about muggle plants. My mum and I plant a garden every year." Remus said with a self-conscious laugh.

"That's brilliant!" Sirius fairly shouted, exuberant at the thought of having a real live garden. James took the opportunity of Remus distracting Sirius to tack a note on his back. Yes, it was a bit of a muggle trick, but James didn't know any real magic yet, he could so far only transfigure a match to a needle, or charm a brick to read the words "knock here." Why James knew that charm was beyond him, and he couldn't think of any practical pranking occupation for that charm. Or why he had learned it in the first place. So James had to be content with just using muggle notes and tape for now. Luckily, Sirius hadn't taken his spellotape along with the dungbombs that morning, spellotape was stickier and stronger than muggle tape, and almost impossible to remove. Basically, Sirius' back was stuck reading the words "If you can read this, hex my hair girly colors" until he was made aware of this fact, and could get the tape to come off. Hopefully, that wouldn't be for a while now.

~Cessare~

Remus Lupin wasn't exactly having a great day. After being awoken far too early by an owl(again!), he was tired. When this fact was combined with the upcoming pull of the moon, and the late time in which he fell asleep the night before, he had been sore the minute he got out of bed. Herbology was a lesson largely involved with notes for now, until they got to work with the real plants, so that lesson was fairly boring. But the essay was an easy enough topic, and Remus happened to have a full book on muggle plants being used as medicines in his trunk. However, he had a full range of healing books in his trunk, and since he had no desire whatsoever to become a healer, he thought be suspicious for the others to learn of these books. So he would have to make- do with the books he could find in the library. The library. Remus was thrilled to have such a great resource in the school, and he was pleased that he would have a chance to explore it that night after dinner while James and Sirius were in detention. Remus was a bit amazed at how quickly the two had gotten detention, only on the first day of classes. However, even in the short time that he'd known them, he could tell that they would just try to break that record for the next year.

In the short time he'd known them. That phrase scared Remus a bit, seeing as he wasn't supposed to get too close to anyone. They might guess his secret, so he was supposed to stay distant from his classmates. Yet there was something about his roommates that seemed to bring out the best side in Remus, a side that was overly- curious, and would still venture out of his safe room late at night to save a friend from the dark...

Remus shuddered as he thought that, he tried to avoid thinking of that night and anything that would remind him of it. So he quickly casted his thoughts about to a happier subject, latching onto the tutoring session he planned to have with Peter that night. Peter, it appeared, got nervous around people easily, so he was reluctant to try his spells out in class, or voice his opinions. Not that Peter had said this himself to Remus, Remus just suspected that that was the case, since he himself had similar problems. People made him nervous generally. Hopefully Peter would be able to become less flustered and more confident in his abilities, Remus didn't think that he was as stupid as Peter seemed to think he was. Peter noticed the small details, Remus thought, and he therefore would need to be careful about what he said around Peter, lest he find out the secret. Though from what Remus had noticed, Peter didn't connect the dots, so to say. He made observations, but he didn't put them together to see the big picture. So maybe Remus didn't need to be so so very careful. Well, it never hurt to be on the safe side though. Remus would have to careful with his personal life and comments on it with Peter, but really with any of his roommates. They all were very smart it would seem.

* * *

><p>In defense against the dark arts, the class was almost a disappointment. The professor, a younger man named Professor Mant, seemed unwilling to let the first years use their wands. Several teachers seemed to hold this opinion, Remus noticed, as the only class that they had been allowed to do more than take notes so far was transfiguration, and brew an easy potion under close supervision. Remus was a bit relieved that Peter seemed to agree with potions class, since they would most likely remain partners in it for the rest of the year.<p>

Professor Mant was having them do desk work for this lesson, they were to read the first chapter in the book and answer a question sheet about it. This was easy for Remus, due to the fact that he had read his entire textbook over the summer already, and had reread the first few chapters multiple times. It was an easy chapter, basically explaining the differences of a defensive spell, a hex, a curse, or dark magic. Remus finished less than halfway through class, and, pleased with his work, set about checking his paper. When Remus noticed that Sirius was done as well, he slid a piece of paper over to Sirius, with a game of hang-man set up on it, a little awed at his own daring. Sirius smiled and guessed the first letter, and the two played back and forth, Sirius trying to guess "inhabitant", until Professor Mant stood above their desk.

"Gentlemen?" He said, softly since the rest of the class was still working. Remus froze, he wasn't sure if they were allowed to be doing that, and didn't want to get on the professor's bad side in the first class. Sirius however, had no qualms about speaking to him.

"Yes sir?" Sirius replied. Remus couldn't quite tell if he had used a bit of sarcasm with sir or not, and apparently the professor couldn't either. The professor's narrowed at it, but appeared to be deciding to let it go.

"Is your work done?" He asked.

"Yes sir. " Remus said softly, finally having found his voice again. The professor looked surprised to hear that, and Sirius gave Remus an encouraging smile. "Would you like us to turn them in?"Remus continued.

Professor Mant nodded, and took their papers, frowning slightly since the rest of the class was not even halfway done. At the end of class, after collecting the rest of the papers, he called them both up to his desk.

"How did you finish so quickly? I graded both of your papers, they are both completely correct."

"Photographic memory, sir." Sirius said, flashing a bright grin at him. The professor looked a bit skeptical of this fact, but the evidence was right before him, so he nodded and turned to Remus.

"I've already read the book a few times sir." Remus said, his cheeks blushing, and his voice soft and nervous.

The professor just looked amused as this fact then, and nodded. "Very well then. I continue to expect excellent work from you then, um.."

"Sirius Black!" Sirius said, glad that they weren't getting in trouble. Well, glad that Remus wasn't getting in trouble.

"Yes, Mr. Black, and.."

"Remus Lupin, sir." There was a flash of recognition in the man's eyes, and Remus realized that all of his teachers must have been informed of it. To his credit though, the man didn't look scared. He simply looked a bit wary, and more aware of why Remus would have read the book so many times already. The book, after all, was called "Dark Magic and Creatures, an Introduction to the Defenses".

~Cesso~

History of magic was boring, to put it simply. Peter kept fidgeting the whole class, unable to fall into the stupor that resulted in sleep, like every other student in the room. With Remus and some Gryffindor girl being the only exceptions, they both seemed to be the studious kind. Peter's eyes cast around the room, hoping to grab onto something, anything to give him something to do, distract him from this monotonous lesson. But Peter couldn't find anything, and Remus was taking notes. Notes! Actual notes for this balderdash! Peter had listened for about the first ten minutes of class, but it had scared him out of his wits. The professor, a ghost non the less, had droned on about wars and rebellions, and friends in disguise. Peter was terrified to hear about this all, he wanted to hear about a nice safe world, where he didn't worry about people coming after him every minute. So for the rest of the lesson he resolved to only listen to the teacher's voice, and tone of voice. He wouldn't listen to a single word he said. No.

Perhaps, though, these wars weren't real. Maybe they were just made up stories that someone thought it would be funny to scare students with, another part of Peter's head said. Peter wondered if everyone argued with themselves in their head, and deciding that he must just be crazy, decided that he would watch the flying lessons that had just started taking place outside, that he could see from the window. Why anyone would hold flying lessons with a handful of first years right beside a large tower was beyond Peter, but he gladly took the distraction as it was given to him.

The people outside were Ravenclaws, and were most defiantly the smart group, not the brawny. Only three of the ten or so people had successfully grabbed his(her? Peter couldn't see quite that far) broom, and only one was able to ride it without falling off immediately. So far. Maybe they would get better. Peter worried though, what if he turned out to be one of those kids? The kids who couldn't even get the broom to go up?

Maybe flying wasn't real though. After, he had never flown before, so it could still be made up for all he knew. This was, after all, a magic school. Who was to say that the window wasn't enchanted for bored students or something? So he cast the thoughts of flying badly aside, there was still a possibility that it didn't even exist, so he had no need to worry. So he quickly cast all thoughts of flying in general away as well, and turned resolutely away from the window.

"James" Peter hissed, poking his drowsy friend in the arm.

"Hu-awwhh?" James replied, his question evolving into a yawn. The heat in this room was impressive, especially since everywhere else in the castle, and outside even, was very nice weather, with a good temperature. The heat just seemed to add to the misery of this class though.

"I'm bored." Peter said, his tone beginning to whine a little bit.

"Great. So am I. Wanna play tic-tac-toe?" At Peter's eager nod, James grinned, and drew a board on his sheet of parchment, labelled with the date and subject. Apparently James had planned to take notes, before he learned what a dull class it was.

Peter won ten games out of the twelve they played, and James remarked that he was impressed. Peter swelled with pride at that comment, and gratefully stretched as class was dismissed.

"By the way," Peter said, as they stood up to leave, "why is Sirius' hair purple?"

* * *

><p>After dinner, James and Sirius had detention, so they gleefully departed for that, while Peter and Remus made off to the library to practice spells and go over homework. Peter was eager to try the match and needle spell thing again, he thought he might be better at it now that he wasn't feeling the pressure of the rest of the class. Although most of the class hadn't done very well either, James and Sirius and Remus had all done well, so Peter felt the need to compare. Remus also said that he would help Peter with the herbology essay, since Remus knew the most about that kind of stuff. Even though Peter hadn't grown up in the pure wizardry homes like James and Sirius had, Peter still was generally unfamiliar with most muggle concepts.<p>

After about a half hours worth of practice, Peter was finally able to make real progress on his match. It was completely silver, and the tip of it was more sharp that a normal match. He was pleased with the progress, and he held it up for Remus to see with a large grin. Remus however, had his head down on the table.

"Remus?" Peter ventured to ask. He was glad that he had though, since Remus immediately lifted his head up and looked around in surprise. Good, at least his friend wasn't dead or something. That would be awful. Having friends, then them dying. Peter had never known if friends were really a true thing until he had started talking to James, and he still was fairly unsure of friendships. Who knows what can really happen in a friendship?

Remus however, was looking very pale, and Peter was worried that he might be really ill or something. What does one do with an ill friend? Should he call a teacher or something? Take Remus someplace? Or what if someone had cursed Remus ill? Would he be expected to curse that person back? Ask him how he felt though, first. Right. Maybe this was just really bad lighting, and it made everyone look ill and pale and sleepy. Maybe.

"Remus? Are you feeling ok?" Peter asked, hesitation thick in his tone.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine Peter, don't worry." Remus said, giving Peter a weak smile when he heard the panic in his voice. Peter didn't think that it looked like a real smile of his though, so he still was worried. But he supposed that if Remus had told him he was fine, he had to be fine.

"Oh, good job there Peter!" Remus said, as he noticed the half-match laying on the table, where Peter had dropped it in surprise at Remus' pale face.

"Thanks Remus! How's yours?" Peter inquired. It seemed to Peter like he was doing a lot of questioning around his new friends. But it was kind of nice having someone to care about that wasn't just your mother.

Remus looked at his match in response, he hadn't worked on it since he had almost fallen asleep it would appear.

"Right. I'll try it another time." Remus said, and he scrunched his face up in concentration. As he muttered the spell, a wisp of silver came out the end of his wand, and curled around the match. It hovered on the match for a minute, turning the match silver and beginning to turn it sharp. Then it just sort of collapsed into itself, and disappeared, as Remus lost his concentration for a second. Peter was amazed at the spell, even though his own match was further along than Remus', his wand hadn't produced such a pure silver, or as much of the smoke. Remus' spell had looked just like James' had when James had managed to transfigure his completely.

"That was great, Remus!" Peter gushed.

"Thanks Peter." Remus said with a slight grin. Remus pulled back his sleeve to look at his watch then, and frowned slightly.

"Peter, James and Sirius should be getting out of detention soon now. Do you want to head back to the dorm now to wait for them?"

"Sure," Peter agreed, "I can't wait to hear about all the awful tasks that they had to do!"

~Cese~

"REMUS! PETER!" Sirius screamed, as he and James ran back into the dorm room.

"Yes, Sirius?" Remus replied, wincing a bit at the loud voices. Peter merely looked shocked that someone could be quite so loud.

"We came up with a great idea during detention!" James yelled.

"Detention by the way? It's nothing! It's almost fun! All we had to do was scrub trophies." Sirius interjected.

"I'm glad you had fun in...detention." Remus said, sarcasm heavy in his voice. "What's this great idea?"

" A detention wall!" James yelled.

"A detention wall?" Peter repeated, clearly confused what they meant. Sirius thought it was a great idea though.

"Yeah! A detention wall! We're going to put all of our detention slips we collect over the years on a wall!" Sirius shouted. He wasn't quite sure why Peter and Remus were so hesitant to grasp this idea.

"Where will we find said wall?" Remus asked, as always, the logical one.

"Let's just pick a wall in our dorm." James said, waving lazily at the wall surrounding them.

"I like that wall." Peter said, pointing to the wall that held the door to the bathroom and the door to the stairs.

"I like that one better." Sirius didn't really though, he just wanted to disagree.

Remus groaned softly, and laid down on his bed, apparently giving up in the argument.

"No, I like Peter's wall better." James said, giving Peter a smile. "I still say we should use a different wall." Sirius said, pouting. "No you don't." Remus called from his bed. "You just want to disagree." Sirius could hardly argue with that fact, so instead he just grinned, and pulled out

his detention slip from his pocket.

"Here's the first to stick up!" James called. He already had had his slip in his hand.

"No! Here's the first!" Sirius yelled, struggling to find it in his pockets. His pockets had already managed to collect a vast variety of well... everything in the few hours since he had cleaned them out last. A quill, a roll(he had plans to eat it soon), a handful of...is that sand?, and his needle from transfiguration, his wand, a handful of beads, a few scrolls of parchment, and finally, his detention slip!

"Here it is!" Sirius called, ignoring the incredulous looks he was getting from Peter involving his pockets and their contents.

"Great!" James said. "I already got mine taped up." And he had. He had taken the opportunity of Sirius' distraction to grab his spellotape from his bag and tape his slip to the wall, grinning smugly at Sirius' saddened expression.

"Fine." Sirius replied, deciding to close the subject, as he strode over to tape his own slip up. "But I have an even better idea than the detention wall!"

"I can't wait to hear it." Remus called, his voice somewhat muffled since his face was in his pillow.

"Remus Lupin! Was that sarcasm I just heard?" Sirius called back to him, glad that these rooms were apparently soundproof since no one had noticed, or yelled at, all of the shouting.

"No. I'm never sarcastic." Remus deadpanned, face still in the pillow.

"How can you even breathe with your face in the pillow?" James asked, a puzzled look on his face.

"Well, James, you simply open your mouth, then take in air, your lungs will expand, and then oxygen is brought to your heart, where it is spread into your blood. The carbon dioxide is then-"

"Ok, ok!" James cut him off. "Great explanation! That was fascinating. Sirius, your idea?"

"Right! Let's go exploring!" Sirius said, glad that James had thought to get them back on track. Sirius himself had already forgotten what they had been talking about, despite his excellent memory.

"Exploring?" Peter sounded confused, Remus groaned into his pillow, and James looked very pleased with the idea.

"Exploring! Let's go explore the castle!" James explained.

"Remus, it's a weekend night! So you can't even protest about school! And I know that you and Peter practiced spells and did other school related stuff earlier, so don't bother protesting! Let's go! We still have an hour before curfew." Sirius added.

"Yes, but what if we get in trouble? Or we aren't allowed? What if it's past curfew, or we get get lost or...or.." Remus stuttered out, obviously trying to come up with a viable reason not to go. Sirius just found it amusing that Remus, the one who so far had the best ideas, and knew the best spells for pranking out of them all, was wary of exploring.

"I don't think that Remus is feeling very well." Peter contributed. Sirius frowned a little at that, and really looked at Remus, who had taken his head out of the pillow to look at them while he had started protesting. Remus was looking awfully pale, and he did have awfully big rings of shadows under his eyes...

"I'm fine!" Remus insisted. "I just don't want us to get into trouble! Well, more trouble." He amended.

"I don't think that we'll get into trouble." James said, and Sirius could tell that he was bluffing. He wasn't sure if Remus could detect it though.

"Well.." Remus looked hesitant, and Sirius took that moment of weakness to his full advantage.

"Great! Let's go!" And before Remus could protest, he had grabbed Remus' arm, seized Peter's hand, and pulled them out the door.

* * *

><p>Once in the hallways, they just started roaming. And they certainly roamed, and searched, and wandered, and explored. Every time Remus went to check his watch Sirius would distract him, so Sirius really had no idea how late it was getting. All he knew is that he was having the best time in his life! Finally, after drifting down one hallway, they found a painting that giggled at them. A pear, and he just wouldn't stop laughing.<p>

"What's so funny?" Sirius said, looking at the pear in confusion. The pear just laughed a little more though. So Sirius strode over to the pear, and started tickling it, wanting to give it a reason to last. But to his surprise, a door appeared instead.

~Cesser~

The boys opened the door, and immediately were assaulted with the heavenly scents of food. A house elf pattered over to them and asked them if they would like anything to eat. They were all a bit shocked at what they had found, and found that none of them could talk properly, even Sirius and James. Eventually, Sirius sort of nodded at the elf, and almost instantaneously they were seated at a table and being given a plate of leftovers from dinner. They all grinned at each other, perhaps a bit stupidly, as they all happily munched on treats and sandwiches. This place was a gold mine! It was only their third night at the school too, it was a huge success, the perfect kickoff to a series of nights that they would spend exploring the school. Remus even forgot to keep checking his watch, as the four stayed in the kitchen and talked, laughed loudly, and chatted with the house elves. Finally, long after curfew, when Remus fell asleep and slumped over onto his plate, James decided that it was late enough. They rose, after Sirius threw a pastry at Remus to wake him back up, and crept back to the dorm. They, of course, left with pocketfuls of pastries and biscuits though, just in case they became hungry before breakfast. Just in case. And another night at Hogwarts was ended, as the four collapsed into bed, giddy at their find and ecstatic that they had not been caught. So they of course had plans to explore the next night as well.


	6. Chapter Five

**Hi guys! I know you all probably hate me now, this is really super really late. I apologize greatly for this fact! Real life sort of hit me really hard. I take a couple of classes online out of school, and they all were due this week so I was really behind on that and needed to finish them. And I thought I would have this up last night, but then I went to see an opera! It was the first opera I've ever seen, and actually, it was quite awesome. Have any of you ever seen Tosca? If you haven't, it's very good! So I apologize loads for the huge delay, but this one is fifteen pages long! Fifteen! So please love me. I'll try to have another chapter up on Monday or Tuesday. Really! I promise it! You can hold me to it. Enjoy! Thank you all for reading so much. I love you all! Even though you probably hate me right now. By the way, I don't own this. Quite unfortunately. **

* * *

><p>Saturday morning dawned all too brightly for the boys in Gryffindor tower, where, surprise surprise, they were awoken by another howler. Peter awoke with a very unmanly shriek of surprise and fell out of bed onto Sirius' foot. That caused Sirius to join in with the shrieking of the howler, although the howler was still louder. Peter noticed that Sirius tended to shriek in the same pattern as the howler, or at least he thought he did. He could only see Sirius' lips move. But he yelled in the same manner Mrs. Black did, and he wondered if Sirius had often grown up being yelled at often, so that he would develop this same pattern to his words.<p>

After the howler was finished, Sirius continued to hop around on one foot, yelling curse words that would have made a sailor's ears hurt. Finally, he stopped and sat down on James bed, sighing overlydramatically.

"I hate to break this to you mate, but this howler thing is really getting old." James said as he burrowed back under his covers.

"She'll probably get bored with it soon." Sirius said, climbing under James covers as well. Peter had noticed that about Sirius, he seemed to survive on human contact, and took every opportunity he could to stop from isolating himself. Peter wasn't used to having his shoulders patted so much, and was defiantly unused to anyone clambering onto his bed as Sirius did. But Sirius did these things, and Peter supposed that he would need to stop flinching every time someone touched him.

"Why doesn't she send them to you at breakfast like everyone else does?" Remus said quietly from his corner of the room. Peter hadn't noticed that he was awake, although he supposed one had to be deaf to ignore the shrieks the combined force of the Blacks produced. Peter had been wondering about that too, why they were forced to wake at the crack of dawn to hear Sirius' mum scream, but he didn't feel comfortable enough with Sirius to ask him.

James snorted in response to that question then answered for Sirius. "The Blacks advertise what a disgrace this dork is? They would never want to admit that Sirius is in Gryffindor, they'll hide out until this is all over. But Sirius and his dorm mates still need to be woken up early every day of course."

Sirius nodded along with what James was saying, shoving James nearly off the edge of the bed when he called him a dork.

"When will she be done sending them?" Peter asked. Now that James was in the conversation he felt safer asking questions. Even though Peter would insist that he was one of Sirius' friends, Sirius still worried Peter with that intense scowl and aristocratic attitude.

"Oh, next year when Regulus is safely sorted into Slytherin and they can forget about me." Sirius said, with an air of Peter's stricken expression Sirius

laughed, then corrected his answer. "Probably within a week or two, she doesn't have much patience for me anyways."

"Who's Regulus?" Remus asked, as he got out of his bed.

"My little brother. My parents are perfectly proud of him at least." Sirius said, with a scowl in his voice, and the hint of one on his face. Peter suspected that even though he was resentful of his brother's position, he liked his brother. That's why Peter was never unhappy with being an only child, he would have hated to deal with sibling rivalry. Siblings were rumored to be awful anyways, he wouldn't have wanted one no matter what. They would have just made him nervous. More nervous anyways.

Peter noticed that Remus was taking his clothes out of his trunk and preparing to go into the bathroom to change, as he had every day since they had first arrived.

"What time is it?" Peter said to Remus, since the sun was barely up. "It's a little after six." He replied, shutting the trunk's lid quietly. "And you're getting up already?" James said incredulously.

Remus blushed a little at this, then replied sheepishly "Once I'm woken up I can't go back to sleep. So I suppose I'll just go to the library or something until you're all awake." Peter burrowed back under his covers as Remus walked to the door, but stuck his head back out as Remus hesitated for a minute.

"Peter?" Peter nodded, and Remus continued. "Be careful when you get out of bed." Peter looked over the side of his bed, but couldn't see anything. Remus gave a soft laugh and left the room.

* * *

><p>Three hours later, Sirius woke up for good, and that meant that everyone else had to be up too. Peter woke up a second time to shrieking, but this time it was just Sirius. Peter looked up at Sirius groggily, eyes blinking rapidly. Sirius was hopping around on one foot, the other foot clasped between his two hands.<p>

James looked at Sirius with a mildly curious expression, but still a very calm one. Peter was just bewildered. The two watched Sirius dance about for another few minutes before saying anything.

"So what are you doing?" James asked, finally halting the circles Sirius was spinning in.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I hurt my foot!" Sirius said after pausing for a second, before going back to his circles and swearing. Peter was mildly impressed with

his vocabulary; as shocked as he was by the curse words, he did have to say that Sirius had a very colorful choice of words. And in several languages from the sound of it.

"How?" James said, after another few moments, also listening to Sirius' word choice.

"Well, I hurt it yesterday, then some great lump-" here he stopped to scowl at Peter, who visibly receded into his covers, "- fell on it this morning. Then I hurt it again, but worse!" Sirius said this all while jumping in place on one foot, a feat(tehe) that Peter was sure he couldn't have managed.

"Well, maybe you could stop hopping and we could go and eat?" James suggested, in the sort of calm tone one uses with a child throwing a temper tantrum.

To Peter's amazement, Sirius did stop his useless hopping, and sat down on the floor, and pulled his socks off. He then proceeded to throw a robe on, but one without the Gryffindor emblem. James looked mildly impressed at his speed, and he got out of bed to put on some clothes of his own. Peter resolved that he wasn't going to get any more sleep, and got out of bed as well, completely forgetting about Remus' warning.

With a yelp, Peter fell to the floor, clutching his foot in agony, much as Sirius had been minutes before. Peter stopped shouting long enough, it was some sort of clamp. Peter ripped it off of his foot, and the clamp turned invisible as it hit the floor. Suddenly, a lot of things fit into pieces in Peter's mind. Sirius, who had hurt his foot, two times other than when Peter had landed on it. And Sirius, who had been beside Peter's bed before the owl came, despite Sirius' bed being on the other side of the room. Remus warning him about his floor, then shooting Sirius a look before he left. Peter had dismissed it at the time, but now it all made sense. It was Sirius who had done it; Sirius who was now laughing hysterically, while James just had a confused look on his face, though he was laughing along with Sirius.

"Sirius!" Peter yelled, as it all fit together.

"Yes?" Sirius gasped out, trying to talk between fits of laughter. "Isn't it awful? My uncle bought it for me one year. I used it on Regulus more times than I can count, but he got used to it after too long. It turns invisible as soon as you set it on the floor. It's great!"

"Can we use it on Slytherins?" James asked, an excited look on his face. Peter was stepping around the room like it was a minefield, he wasn't sure where he had flung the thing.

"Yes! The only thing is, I'm not sure how Remus knew it was there. Peter, did you see it before you stepped on it?"

"No. And I'd rather like Remus to come back and find it before I step on it again."

Peter said warily, sitting on the floor as he tried to get dressed. A task that was proving surprising less difficult than it would seem at a first try.

"Let's go and find Remus!" Sirius shouted, in another one of his seemingly random outbursts. Peter had noticed that Sirius had a lot of these outbursts; one day he supposed that he would find a pattern to it all.

"Ok, let's go then!" James agreed as he hopped out of bed, looking around the floor carefully as he walked. Sirius continued to dance around the room, throwing clothes at James occasionally and tossing shoes at Peter, who was looking for his. None of the shoes Sirius tossed were Peter's, but James and Sirius were getting impatient. Since Peter refused to go anywhere near his bed, where he would have to go to fetch his shoes from under, Sirius finally decided that he would go. So carefully, Sirius tip-toed over to Peter's bed, and was just about to retrieve his shoe when suddenly..

"OWWWWWWW!" Sirius yelled, pulling the clamp off of his foot and throwing it across the room.

"Great!" James said. "Now we'll never find it! Peter, just wear a pair of my shoes, let's just get out of here before it eats us all."

Peter hurried to get a pair of James' on, then rushed out of the room with the other two boys to find Remus, and hopefully some breakfast.

~Cese~

Sirius Black was oddly thin, James thought as they walked downstairs. Or rather, James and Peter walked downstairs. Sirius was riding piggy-back style on James' back, since it was soon determined that he couldn't actually walk due to the number of clamp bites on his feet. Sirius had managed to get out of the dorm room, but after that he had collapsed and fallen down the stairs, finding it impossible for him to walk. So James had been elected to carry Sirius until they found Remus. They were hoping that Remus would know where the infirmary was since they were all helpless with directions, and got lost four times trying to find the library. Granted, Sirius and James hadn't even been to the library yet, and Peter had relied on Remus to lead the way on their previous visit.

Even though it was quite a lot of walking to do with a boy on your back, James wasn't having many problems with it. Sirius was oddly thin, although he was the tallest of the four, he was very light to actually carry.

The three walked down another hallway that Peter thought "looked familiar". Unsurprisingly enough, it wasn't at all familiar, and in no way led to the library. But luck was with the boys that morning. As they were just about to go down another hall they heard a whistle. James turned around to see who would be whistling at them, after all they were the only students in this hallway, and was pleasantly surprised when he saw a small figure rushing towards them.

"Remus!" Peter cried, overjoyed to have found their savior.

"Remus, are you all right?" James asked as Remus got closer and he could see the shockingly pale color Remus' skin was.

''Yes, yes. I'm fine! Don't worry, I'm just a bit tired." Remus replied. James was appeased with the answer and missed the panicked look that came into Remus' eyes while he answered.

"I greatly apologize for my mother's bloody owl." Sirius said to Remus, lifting himself up to his whole height. Well, most of it. He was still on James back after all, and although it was uncomfortable to have him squirming up there, James laughed at the tone of pureblooded snobbiness he used to apologize.

"Sirius? Why are you on James' back?" Remus asked, apparently just now noticing the walking arrangements.

"Oh I'm fine! I just got into a bit of a scrape or four with my foot." Sirius replied, trying to pass it off as no biggie. James snorted, recalling the howls of pain Sirius had let loose when he first tried to walk.

"We were looking for you and the library and the infirmary!" James said to Remus. "Why on earth were you here in the castle? Where is here by the way?"

Remus bit back a smile, and replied with "We're on the fourth floor. I'm on the fourth floor, the hospital wing is on the first floor, and the library is on the third floor."

"Why were you on the fourth floor? What's so exciting here?" Peter asked.

"Not much. There's Professor Binns office, and a few classrooms, storage rooms. The general stuff. A bathroom. Fairly boring as far as floors go. I was trying to get a better understanding of the castle until you lot woke up." Remus looked at his watch. "Nice, only nine thirty. I was giving you until ten before I was going to wake you up myself. So Sirius, did you manage to step into your own trap?"

"Four times, Remus! Four! I can't even walk!" Sirius complained, very loudly right beside James' ear.

"How could you see the trap?" James asked, rubbing his ear a bit. "We were hoping you could come and find it for us. It's over on your side of the room now."

"Well, that's just great. Sirius, exactly how legal is that thing?" Remus replied. James noticed that he didn't answer how he could see it, but he figured if Remus didn't want to share, it was ok.

"Well, my uncle got it for me..." Sirius' voice trailed off. "Probably not very legal."

Remus just rolled his eyes, letting out a sigh of exasperation.

"Wait.." James said, as what Remus was implying sunk in. "We can't take Sirius to the hospital wing because it's illegal for him to have that stupid trap?"

"Yes. So...let me see your foot Sirius."

"Are you a qualified healer?" Sirius said, unable to take any situation, well, seriously.

"Absolutely." Remus replied, with a raise of his eyebrow that implied shock at Sirius' lack of trust.

"Well, ok." Sirius said, somewhat begrudgingly. James helped him down, relishing the feel of no one on his back, and then watched in horror as Sirius took his shoes off.

"Crikey Sirius, how many times did it get you?" Remus asked in shock. Sirius' left foot was crisscrossed in tiny jabs from it, and had swelled up. And it was purple. His right foot wasn't nearly as bad, it only had a few of the tiny teeth mark cuts and had only turned red.

"Four..." Sirius said, looking disgusted with his foot.

"Four? I thought it only got you twice?" Peter commented.

"No, it got me a few times before you all got up. Plus Peter fell on my foot. And it bit my hand." Sirius said, holding out his hand for Remus' inspection.

Remus sighed as he rummaged through his pockets, and brought out his wand. He pointed it at Sirius' hand, and murmured a few Latin words that James didn't quite catch. Instantly, his hand was back to normal.

"Great!" Sirius said, looking at his hand in happiness, awe painted on his face. "Will that work on my foot?"

"Yes.." Remus said, hesitant for some reason though.

"What's the matter?" James asked Remus, worried that Sirius' foot might be permanently damaged.

"Nothing." Remus said, giving them all a weak smile, and pointed it at the less beat up foot of the two. He murmured the same words from before, and although it helped Sirius' foot, it was proved to be bad for Remus. Remus winced as he let loose the second spell, and bit his lip. James grabbed Remus' arm, afraid that he would pass

out or something, Remus' face was so deathly pale. More so than normal, more than should be normal for anyone.

"Remus! Are you ok? Do you need to sit down?" James asked, getting increasingly worried as Remus didn't answer. But Remus slowly regained his breath and sat down on the floor.

"I'm fine." He said with an air of finality that suggested none of them should question his statement. But James had to. He had just almost fainted from that spell, there was no way that that was normal.

"Remus.." Sirius began. "Let's just go to the hospital wing. Maybe the nurse will have something for you too. 'Cause that's not right."

"No, I'm really fine Sirius. It's nothing. The spell itself isn't the problem, I'm just not used to using a wand and spells for magic." Remus replied, sounding awfully like a professor. A professor who held his classes on the floor in deserted hallways.

James was remembering how Remus had used wandless magic several times throughout their stay at Hogwarts, and each time had performed spells that were too complicated for James to even know the spell for. How was such a wimpy looking kid so good at wandless magic? And why wasn't he supposed to do it?

"Right. Now, for your other foot. James, do you suppose you could do it? The incantation is fairly simple and there's no wandwork involved. Just point and aim." Remus said, a brisk and businessman like tone to his voice, dampened somewhat by the fact that he looked like he was about seven, and was sitting on the floor.

"Is the spell safe?" Sirius said. James was kind of wondering that too, especially if he would have to perform it. What if he couldn't? James suddenly had images of he and Remus, collapsed on the floor from the spell, Sirius unable to walk, and Peter being the one to save the day.

"Oh yes, the spell is safe. It shouldn't cause any side-affects to James. He'll be fine. This spell requires a lot of just raw power, James has plenty of that." Remus said, in a confident tone. James couldn't doubt him; he sounded so sure of himself, so he supposed he could do it.

"Right. So how does the spell go?" James asked

* * *

><p>The remainder of Saturday spent wandering the castle as they all wanted to know every inch of it by the year's end. They stayed out long past curfew, to Remus' horror, but they didn't get caught. Remus could hear footsteps from forever away, and every time he heard someone coming, Peter would point out some kind of passage or side room that they hadn't noticed before. James and Sirius each saw several places that would be ideal for pranks, and they whispered quietly about them as they walked<p>

through the halls. James was sure that Sirius would always be his best friend, they already seemed to click together so well, and they both had a love for pranks. Yes, Remus and Peter did too, but Peter was afraid of being caught, and Remus just seemed reluctant for whatever reason. James just hoped that Remus would get over his reluctance soon.

~Cessare~

Sunday morning dawned clear and bright, the birds chirping outside, the sun and a cool breeze coming through the window. And Sirius was terribly bored.

Due to his nature, whenever he was bored, he had a tendency to want to make something happen. Due to his inability to sleep longer than the sun, he was always up before anyone else in the dorm. So these two facts combined caused Sirius to be rather mischievous in the morning. Since he wasn't sure how early they were allowed to be up, he didn't leave the dorm and instead contemplated what to do to his friends that morning. He had pranked Peter successfully(well, semi-successfully at least) the day before, and had caused plenty of mischief other days. But Sunday was a day of rest, he had to do something special for that day. This required extra materials from his trunk, and possibly from James as well.

The plan was to place some itching powder in someone's shoes. But since Peter was already wary of Sirius, and Remus had an uncanny ability to know what he was planning, this meant he had to prank James. But James was pretty smart himself, and if no one else got pranked, James would be suspicious. So Sirius had to toss in an extra prank, which he decided wouldn't be that bad. So he dug through James' trunk, pulling out all of his socks. Then he went to Peter's and Remus' trunks and dug all of the socks out as well. James trunk was easily the messiest, and most of his things were no longer in the trunk, even though they hadn't even been there a week yet. Peter's trunk looked as though it used to be well arranged, all his clothes were in haphazard stacks in the trunk. Remus' was the easiest to find all the socks in though, he had organized all of his clothes neatly, and had cardboard pieces to separate his clothes and books. Sirius had laughed when he saw that, but appreciated how easy it was to take all of the socks.

Now the two plans could be put in motion. Sirius decided that the best place to put the socks would be the bathroom. He carefully took every sock from the dorm, including his own, into the bathroom, and contemplated for a minute. The showers, he thought, would be the best place for them.

He first unrolled every sock, then got out the spellotape he had filched from James' trunk. Then he started taping the socks to the walls of the shower. He continued doing this until he was out of socks, so he sat down to think about what else to do. The itching powder thing kind of paled in comparison to this idea that was purely a distraction, so maybe he better rethink the itching powder.

Finally, Sirius had his final plan. He would put itching powder on James' pillow, he wold itch all night that way, but still be caught unaware. And if Sirius had enough, he would put some itching powder on Remus' and Peter's pillows as well!

Good. Now that his plan was all worked out, he could just sit and wait innocently until the rest of them woke up. But if his mother planned to send another howler, it should be soon..

* * *

><p>And it was soon. Not twenty minutes after Sirius finished taping socks to the walls an owl came in through the window, and a howler exploded from it. As usual, Peter freaked and jumped out of bed as though someone had shoved him. James blinked sleepily and looked around, vaguely confused, but not at all alarmed with the situation. But Remus reacted differently.<p>

Remus normally woke up like a rocket, and would look around with wide eyes, as though he thought they were under attack. But today, he didn't just react like they were under attack, he responded to the attack. Sirius was turning to Remus, ready to reassure them that no one was hurt, and he saw the panicked look on his face was even more intense than usual. All of a sudden, the howler just, well, exploded. A bright flash of light enveloped the whole room, and when Sirius chanced to open his eyes again, the howler was gone. Sirius turned the rest of the way to Remus, who was sitting on his bed looking very ashamed of himself.

"Did you just explode that howler?" James demanded. Remus nodded miserably in response, not looking up to speak.

"That was amazing!" Sirius said. Remus looked startled at Sirius' view on the event, but his glum face lifted just a little.

"How did you do that?" James asked, a bit in awe at the power Remus occasionally wielded.

"I didn't really mean to.." Remus trailed off, the miserable look returning to his face. "I mean, I'm not really supposed to do wandless magic, but I really didn't mean to. It was just accidental." Remus' voice got higher and faster as he spoke, the panic in his voice evident to everyone.

"Whoa, Remus, calm down. Do you see any of us crying over my stupid howler being gone?" Sirius interjected, cutting Remus off before he could get any more upset.

"I guess not." Remus said, but he didn't sound convinced of what he was saying.

"Then don't be upset about it!" James said. Sirius noticed that Peter had remained silent throughout the whole conversation, and looked over at him curiously.

Peter was fairly quiet, but he normally tried to put himself into a conversation at least partially.

Peter was staring at Remus still, a look of amazement on his face. Clearly, Remus was his new favorite person. Either that or he was afraid of Remus, afraid that he would explode him next. Sirius bit his lip to keep from smiling at the idea of being afraid of Remus, the shortest and smallest of them all.

"That was so. so. so. cool!" Peter finally burst out saying.

Remus blushed as he mumbled something incomprehensible, and was in the bathroom before any more could be said on the matter.

Remus came out of the bathroom and without saying a word, gave Sirius a look that told him he was utterly confused with Sirius' actions. Sirius gave him a look that implored him not to say anything, to let the distraction go through. Remus hesitated for a moment, then nodded. Sirius was allowed to keep the socks taped to the walls.

Peter walked by on the wa

* * *

><p>y to the bathroom, and gave Remus a strange look.<p>

"Hey Remus? Why aren't you putting on socks with your shoes?" Peter asked.

"Oh, uh, I just couldn't find any this morning. I guess I just misplaced them?" He answered. Sirius was very impressed with how well Remus could lie, and if he didn't know any better, he would have had no reason to suspect Remus of being untruthful.

"Oh. That's funny, I couldn't find any either." Peter responded.

"You couldn't either?" James said. "I have no socks anywhere in my trunk. Or on the floor."

"Yeah, mine are missing too." Sirius said, after James gave him an expectant look.

"That's weird. I'm going to take a shower, hopefully they'll show up." James said, as he walked into the bathroom. Mere moments later, a shout and then laughter was heard, to the amusement of Sirius and Remus, and the confusion of Peter.

"Sirius!" He heard James shout. "I'm hiring a baby-sitter to entertain you next weekend!"

* * *

><p>"Where did Remus go?" Sirius said as he walked down into the common room where Peter and James were waiting for him. His feet were rather uncomfortable, wet socks weren't very pleasant.<p>

"I'm not sure. When we got out he was already gone. Maybe he went down to breakfast already?" Peter said.

"Yeah, maybe. Let's go and hope we run into him." James said, and so they went down to eat a lavish meal.

For the rest of the day, they didn't fine Remus, but they had lots of fun anyways. In the morning they went on a walk around the grounds of Hogwarts, and went down to see the Quidditch pitch. None of the teams had held try-outs yet, but there were still plenty of people out practicing to watch. Periodically they would return to the dorm room to see if Remus had returned, but they didn't come across him all day. They even walked down to the library at one point, braving the harsh stare of Madame Pince. For almost an hour they were at the library, winding their way through the shelves, poking their head in every corner to see if Remus was there. They got lost several times in the labyrinth like maze of books, and hadn't even gotten halfway through the library when Sirius demanded that they leave. However, he had good reason to ask to leave. James had been _reading _a book. Granted, it was one about hexes, but still. A book! Sirius put his foot down then and they all left, Peter looking relieved to leave. Then for another half hour or so they were lost getting back from the library. They eventually found themselves in the great hall, just a bit before dinner, and decided that they would just sit down there until dinner time in case they were lost again and missed eating that night. None of them were confident that they could find the kitchens without Remus' help.

* * *

><p>After dinner, James and Sirius were working frantically on their homework, trying to ignore Peter's smug grin. They really wished that Remus would show up soon, he would be a lot more help than Peter was being. Peter knew that he had done his homework, he just didn't quite understand the answers well enough to help James and Sirius with theirs.<p>

Finally, at night they were forced to conclude that Remus really well and truly was gone. Completely gone, vanished without a trace. When Sirius stuck his head into Remus' trunk and in his stack of books he discovered that his school books for Monday were gone as well. So worrying greatly, the three boys concluded that Remus would be missing tomorrow as well. With heavy hearts, and all too focused on the absence of their friend, the three boys prepared for bed, much subdued. They all secretly missed the sound of Remus yelling at them to settle down though.

~Cesser~

Remus had been feeling awful all week, it was just an effect of the moon, but the day of the full moon was always the worst. He woke up with a pounding headache and the owl and howler only made it worse. He didn't quite mean to snap so badly that morning, he was just overly cranky. But he knew that he would have to be more careful for now on if he wanted to avoid suspicion. He had tried to avoid his roommates all weekend; he knew that they would notice how overly pale he was.

The howler. He was rather ashamed of how he had just snapped so badly at the howler, no matter how the boys tried to reassure him otherwise. But they didn't understand why he was so ashamed. He knew that doing accidental magic was directly linked to the wolf, he wouldn't have done it at any other time of the month. That was why he was so upset about the magic, he really was quite glad that the howler was gone. But he was upset that the reason he had the courage to explode it was due to a piece of him that he'd rather have no part of.

Early in the morning, he was feeling awful, and once again cursed that howler disrupting his sleep. All he wanted to do on full moons was sleep, sleep for hours without being awoken. But once he was awake, he was awake, and it was impossible for him to fall back asleep. So when everyone else was getting ready to go to breakfast, he instead walked down to the kitchens.

It was much lonelier in the kitchen without James laughter, or Sirius throwing food at him. He missed Peter's quiet remarks as well, but he knew that he simply couldn't eat with them. On full moons his appetite was very peakish, and all he could stomach was chocolate and meat that was nearly raw. Anything else made him ill, which may arouse suspicion with his roommates.

Remus was realizing now how foolish he had been, allowing himself to become friends with these boys. But it was still early days in his friendship, he had known them for less than a week, so there still might be time for him to isolate himself, refrain from being friendly. Yes, the next seven years would be lonely, but much much safer. Perhaps he could break it off slowly, just start spending more and more time in the library, miss a meal here or there. That's really the right thing to do, he realized. It would be safer for his friends (roommates. He would have to get used to not speaking as if they were friends.), and safer for Remus. After all, every other boy in his dormitory was pure blooded, and as much Remus wanted to think that it didn't count, they had all been raised differently. He wasn't even truly half-blooded, he was more of quarter blood than anything else. No. His secret could never be discovered if he wanted to get an education. Or at least his O.W.L.S., he needed to get those at least.

Remus quietly thanked the house elves for the odd assortment of food they had given him as he left the kitchens. He decided that he would head down to the library. But no, that's where he would be looked for. The boys all knew that he liked books, the library would be the first place they looked after he was discovered not to be in the dorm. So instead Remus decided he would go wandering, just like they had so often already. The difference was that the other three boys were helpless with directions, even Sirius with his memory. But Remus wasn't. He had silently been composing a map of Hogwarts in his head ever since they had started exploring so he wouldn't be late for lessons. But this gave Remus an advantage over the other boys, he could explore uncharted territory without the others with him.

Even though he still had a pounding headache and was incredibly tired, Remus had an unusually high pain tolerance. He knew that the nurse would not understand this though, and would only insist on babying him. He had met the nurse, Madame Pomfrey, over the summer and knew that she would fuss over him. So due to no other place to go, Remus kept walking. He mentally marked locations as he went so he could find his way back to the dorms or infirmary if needed, but kept walking. Finally, Remus realized that it was almost lunchtime, and that the halls had been emptying considerably since he had started his walk. He decided that the dorms were likely to be vacated by then, and slow and rather unsteadily, he made his way back to the dorms.

To his immense relief and seldom apparent luck, the dorm was indeed empty. He quickly grabbed a few textbooks he needed to read through, and stuffed them into his bag. He also grabbed a few bars of muggle chocolate since he knew he would be hungry for them tomorrow. A pair of robes and a few muggle clothes went into his bag, and he was ready to go. With a slight sigh and a hand on his bedpost to steady him, he grabbed his bag and walked out of the dorm.

* * *

><p>Remus reached the hospital wing on the very last traces of his energy. Giving Madame Pomfrey a rye smile, he was settled down onto a hospital bed off in his own private room, that way he could be kept safe from other prying eyes. Madame Pomfrey, as predicted, mothered him, offering him soup and pain potions interchangeably.<p>

For the rest of the afternoon he lounged around in the bed, carefully taking potions as he was given them. He was thankful for the pain potions, he had never had the luxury of them before a moon before. His parents didn't exactly have the most money, and all that they had was used for potions for the day after when his pain was worst. Having potions before was certainly a blessing, and Remus was able to read ahead on subjects he knew that he would be missing. No matter how fast his recovery was, he knew that he'd be missing at least a day of school. He really hoped that this wouldn't impact his schoolwork, he really hoped that he would be able to keep up.

* * *

><p>Late in the evening Remus was awoken from the slight nap Madame Pomfrey had coaxed him into. He was glad for this new method of waking up, a gentle hand on his shoulder rather than the explosive sounds of screams. He was less likely to explode a hand.<p>

Madame Pomfrey carefully helped Remus put on his shoes, but frowned a little.

"Remus? Where are your socks?"

"Oh. I don't have any." He replied, his brain too tired to remember why he didn't.

"You don't have any? Do you own any socks?"

"Yes. I own socks. But not on my feet." Now that he thought about it, he was a little puzzled why he didn't. But it was too late to worry about that. He soon found himself being walked outside, the sun still up, but just barely.

"Now, Remus. This is the whomping willow, Professor Dumbledore told you about it, correct?" Madame Pomfrey said, shooting out a spell and pushing a knot in the tree.

"Yes. I go into the tree then to a shack?" He said. He remembered this much, but most of his brain was still occupied with the sock conundrum. Conundrum. What a strange word..

"Yes. I'll walk you there tonight, there is still an hour before the moon rises. Now, in the morning I will come and fetch you. I'll take you up to the hospital wing before anyone else is awake, and you can rest and recover there." Madame Pomfrey continued on with instructions for the next day as they walked through a long tunnel. A tunnel is awfully hard and cold if there are no socks. Remus still was stuck on socks.

"Well, here we are. It's a whole house, lots of room of course."

Remus was so tired he was barely able to stand up straight, his eyes kept shutting themselves. But as tired as his body was, his brain was awake. So painfully awake, and still overly focused on socks.

"Sirius took them!" Remus burst out suddenly, shocking the matron as he interrupted her talking. "He taped them to the bathroom walls."

"What was that dear?"

"Socks. Sirius took my socks. All of our socks." Remus was immensely relieved that he had remembered this fact, now he could concentrate on what was happening.

"Right. Well, I'm glad to hear that..now, the moon should be rising soon, so I'm going to go. I'll be back for you in the morning, all right?"

"Ok. Good night. Sirius doesn't normally take my socks. It was just for a trick."

"Right dearie. Good night Remus." Madame Pomfrey hesitated for a minute as though she wanted to say something else, but she couldn't find the words to say. Instead she hurried out through the door to the tunnel. Remus heard several magical locks be enacted, and an involuntary shiver ran through him. The moon was near.

~Cesso~

That night was an uneasy one for all of the lion-hearted boys. Three boys were worrying about the empty bed, an empty bed that soft moonlight poured onto. Two of these boys were incredibly itchy, but both of them assumed that it was just nerves and didn't mention it. The last of the three boys was worrying about his brother at home, and worrying about how he was faring without his protector. The final bed was empty, the boy who normally resided in it was faring the worst. He was not even a boy anymore, instead he was a monster, screaming at the world. He howled at the moon, cursing the day it existed and trapped him. He tore himself to shreds, impatient since he could smell humans oh so very close, but still too far for him. He was stuck in these magical confinements, forced to disfigure his own flesh in frustration. All night he would continue to howl and destroy, never sleeping, never ceasing. All night long, the monster raged, and three boys worried, listening to the howls of the night.


	7. Chapter Six

**Hi everyone! I know I said Monday or Tuesday, but my family is chronically late, so it's just a genetic thing. I am genetically predisposed to post this a day late! It's over twenty pages though, so please don't be mad at me! School's on Easter Break now, so I should be posting more than usual. I hope you all aren't mad at me and will still read this! Now I have a favor to ask you guys. Would anyone be wiling to check this over and leave a review on the grammatical stuff? My sister reads over most of my chapters before I post them, but she's twelve, and she doesn't always catch any grammatical mistakes that I make. So if anyone wanted to leave a review or PM me telling me about all the grammatical stuff I do wrong, I'd love you! But if you don't want to, I'd still love you! So please enjoy the story!**

* * *

><p>Monday morning came far too soon for James. All Sunday night he had been up itching, it was almost like someone had thrown itching powder on his bed or something similar. Sirius had gotten another howler that morning too, that wasn't helping any..<p>

Then James' brain clicked into gear. Itching powder. Sirius. When you put them right together like that, it made perfect sense.

"Sirius!" James yelled as soon as the howler died down.

"What?" Sirius replied, with a look of almost genuine confusion on his face. Almost though, not completely.

"Why would you put itching powder in my bed?"

"Oh! That was itching powder? Oh good. I was worried that an ant hill had put up residence under my bed." Peter said, trying to right himself from his position on the floor. When the howler arrived, Peter had fallen and gotten tangled in the sheets, trapping his feet and ankles in them while the rest of him lay on the floor. James tried not to laugh at the sight, after all, he was supposed to be mad right then.

"An ant hill, Peter?" Sirius said.

"Yeah. Have you ever laid down for a picnic or anything, and been sitting all peaceful in the sun? And then an ant comes and bites you, and it starts to itch really badly?" Peter said. His feet were mostly untangled by that point.

"Picnic?" Sirius asked.

"Picnic. We'll explain later. Right now though, stop avoiding the subject! Why in Merlin's name would you decide to make us itch all night? I'm so tired now!" James interjected before Sirius could get started on another tangent.

"I can tell you're tired, you're acting rather cranky. However, to assume that I would have anything to do with it? Ridiculous! You do know what they say about assumers, don't you? But you know, blaming a poor innocent little boy like I, that simply is outrageous. I simply cannot believe that you, James Potter, would be so cruel as to do that to one such as I. You could ruin one's reputation with such serious accusations as you accuse. Please do take great care not to become another mindless accusing assumer." Sirius said, drawing into his pureblood voice more and more as his rambling went on.

"Assumers isn't a word. And it's just assume that the joke is about. Innocent? I'll believe it when I see it!" James said. He wished he could do the pureblood ranting as well as Sirius did, it'd be awfully nice to shove it all back in his cheerful rested face someday.

"I don't get it. What's the assume joke?" Peter said, a look of great confusion on his face. James grinned, Peter really was such a mama's boy at times. Teaching him to pull pranks and such? Perfect corruption.

"Assumers is too a word!" Sirius counteracted, ignoring Peter.

"No it's not! Who told you it was? Do you have a dictionary? Is it properly documented evidence? Sorry, therefore, it's not allowed in court." James said.

"We're not in court, dumbo."

James just rolled his eyes as he stepped out of bed. As he stepped out of bed into a large pile of...mush on the ground.

"Sirius!" He yelled for the second time that day. Honestly, he needed to get Sirius a baby-sitter or something. Maybe he could start teaching Sirius to sleep in. The hour or two that Sirius was up alone before everyone else got up was really quite awful for the remainder of the dorm.

Sirius was laughing too hard to say anything in response, and to James' horror, Peter started laughing as well.

"Oh, I see how it is! Let's all just gang up on James then, why don't we? I want Remus to come back! He's the nicest one in this dorm."

"Sorry...sorry James!" Peter huffed out, in between laughs. "Just...the look on...your face. It was just...so priceless!"

Sirius was still laughing too hard to respond to James' cries of horror, or Peter's halfway sincere apologizes.

With a grin, James thought that he knew the perfect way to get back at the tall boy. He bent over and scooped up a handful of the green mush at his feet (James really didn't want to know what it was), and threw it at Sirius' precious hair.

"Ahhh!" Sirius immediately stopped his laughter, and instead began running around the room, dodging handfuls of flying green mush. "My hair! You're going to dye it all green! I'll look like a snake for Merlin's sake! A snake!"

Dye it green? James looked at his hands, and then at his feet and ankles. Ah. Dye it green! Anything the green mush touched was dyed green it would appear. Green hands and feet and ankles? James had to admit that that was kind of cool. But Sirius with green hair, being in Gryffindor? That would be priceless. So James gave another wicked grin and continued to throw the green mush.

"Hey! Watch it!" Peter cried as a handful narrowly avoided hitting him.

"Oops! Sorry Peter!" James yelled, now chasing Sirius around the room with handfuls of it, rather than just throwing it.

"If you get anymore on my hair I swear I'll have to kill you!" Sirius said, turning his head around and holding his wand out threateningly. His expression was menacing, and if James believed that he actually knew any curses, he might actually be afraid.

"I'll believe it when I see it!" James declared, as he tackled Sirius to the ground. The two wrestled for a few more minutes, neither one gaining the upper hand, and both getting covered in green as the fell into spots where James had missed Sirius and covered the floor instead. Sirius was admittedly better at fighting, but he didn't weigh nearly enough to keep James pinned down. So they both continued fighting, throwing green as often as they were hit with it, and wrestling. Eventually, Peter cleared his throat.

"Yes?" James said, turning to look at Peter as he sat on Sirius' legs.

"Breakfast starts in five minutes. I'd rather not miss it." Peter said, looking slightly sheepish.

"Great." Sirius said, biting James' arm. "Let's go then."

And just like that, the fighting was over. Neither boy won, they both were absolutely covered in green. Sirius had a nice looking splotch on the side of his face, and several streaks in his hair. James entire left arm was green, as were his hands and feet. He also had green ears.

"So, Sirius. How does this come off?" James said, standing up to wash some of it off before they had breakfast and classes.

"Err..it doesn't."

"What?" James was sure he just had to have heard him incorrectly.

"It doesn't. Not that I know of anyways." Sirius said, picking at some green flecks on his arm.

"As in you tested it out on me this morning?" James said, suddenly understanding what was being unsaid.

"Absolutely!" Sirius said, flashing James a mischievous grin. James returned one of his own and laughed.

"I can't wait until your cousins see you! You are a little green snake after all!" James joked. Sirius suddenly got a look of horror on his face.

"Why would I do this?" Sirius wailed.

"I dunno. But we need to go and eat soon before Peter starves to death." James said, giving Peter a smile. James was awfully hungry now that he thought about it.

"Brilliant. I get to walk around the school looking like a Slytherin leprechaun. I don't think that I'm that hungry." Sirius said, trying desperately to scrub some off of his arm.

James suddenly had inspiration, and happily picked up another handful of mush.

"What are you doing with that?" Sirius said, sounding very worried.

"Here, Peter!" He threw some at Peter, catching him in surprise and hitting him in the face. "Now we all match!"

* * *

><p>At breakfast, they quite predictably caused a ruckus. But any confusion was good, so James wasn't too upset with causing the mess. But as long as the three of them pretended that they had no clue what everyone was talking about, they could quite assuredly cause even more problems. So, of course that's what they were doing.<p>

"Honestly Evans, I have no idea what you're talking about. Green?" James heard Sirius say to the pretty red-head on his right. Evans. Right, that was her name. Now James had a name for her, he wouldn't have to just call her the pretty red-head!

"But it's all over you! All over your friends too, Black." She replied, sounding quite distressed. James allowed himself a grin as he continued watching her fuss. She made the best hand movements when she was upset.

"Black. Yes, that's my name. Am I Sirius Green?"

"No?" Evans said, sounding very confused at this point.

"Then why in Merlin's name are you trying to convince me that I'm green then? I'm a Black! Admittedly not a very good one, but that's no reason to shed my family name and adopt a title of Green, right? Why are you trying to make me deny my heritage? Now, if you had tried to convince me of becoming Sirius Red, or Sirius Gold, perhaps this could have worked out, but I'm afraid that my loyalties just don't lie to the color green. Too snaky. Now, Evans, becoming Evans Red might work for you."

"Lily. Evans isn't my first name..." Lily said. She appeared to be in shock, and recalling her first name seemed to be the only thing she could say successfully.

"That's great! I'm glad to get to meet you Lily Evans Red. I'm Sirius Black. Not Green. Black. I'm really not green. I don't even have a green thumb. James has one though." He turned to James at this point, but James didn't even notice since he was still watching Evans. Lily. When she got flustered her face heated up, becoming almost as red as her hair.

"James, be a good boy and show Red-head your green thumbs." Evans made a sound of protest at being referred to as red-head, but Sirius waved it off. James obliged to Sirius' request, and held out his hands, palms up, to show Lily very green thumbs.

"Oh, for Pete's sake! Just forget I ever said anything!" Evans said, her face now completely red with anger.

"Pete? We just call him Peter. He doesn't like his name being shortened. I didn't know that you were on such good terms with him to call him by his first name!" James said, figuring he could add a bit to the fray of confusion.

"Are you serious?" Evans said, giving James a look of absolute disbelief. James mentally smacked himself for being such an idiot.

"Nope, ma'am. That would be me! Sirius Black, at your service! Not Green, mind you."

Evans simply groaned, and left the table with a huff. One of the other Gryffindor girls, James couldn't recall her name, got up with her, and had to run to keep up with Evans' fast pace. James grinned and turned to Sirius, giving him a high five. Hopefully they could confuse even more people throughout the day.

* * *

><p>"No Professor, I'm not sure what you mean. Green? I'm Potter, this is Pettigrew, and over there is Black. Could you be thinking of Black perhaps? Last names that are colors are awfully easy to confuse."<p>

"Potter? If you and Black don't remove the green by dinnertime, you will be receiving another detention. Pettigrew, you always will need to find a way to remove yours. Now please stop disrupting my class." Professor McGonagall said as she walked back to the front of the room. James felt that it was rather unfair though, he and Sirius hadn't tried to disrupt the whole class. At breakfast, yeah, disruptions were good. But during McGonagall's class? James rather thought that he'd be mad before he stirred something up under her nose.

'No fair!' James wrote in a note to Peter, who had taken the desk beside him. 'How come you won't get detention?'

'I haven't already had one. Nor did I start a detention wall in the dorm room. Please find a way to get this off, I really don't want detention.' Peter wrote back.

'Yeah, I'll try. It's all Sirius' fault!'

'Yes, James. I know. It's all just his fault, none of it yours at all. Please stop writing me notes. I'm trying to listen to the lesson.'

'Where did you get it?' James wrote in a note he tossed to Sirius.

'My uncle. Too bad it's Slytherin's colors, or it might have made a better prank than one just for you. And me and Peter I guess.'

'Where does your uncle get these things? He's the best!'

'Yeah, I know. Best member of my family! Just like Remus has pointed out though, they're not always legal...'

'Where is the shrimp by the way? I'm worried about him.'

'The shrimp? James, he's taller than you. He only weighs less. You are the shortest after all. And you have awful handwriting.'

'Sorry I don't write perfect calligraphy like others do. I weigh more than him I bet.' 'And he could easily take you in a duel.' 'Let's not bring that up. Someday I'll be taller!'

"Mr. Potter? Mr. Black? Detention tomorrow night at seven. Do you wish to share anything with the class? No? Then kindly refrain from passing notes." Professor McGonagall said, her eyes harsh, her expression serious as she handed them detention slips.

As soon as her back was turned, Sirius and James flashed each other grins, holding up the slips like trophies.

~Cessare~

As the three boys left lunch, still very much green, two girls were walking up to them. And with a flash, Sirius realized that they were his cousins.

"Quick!" He hissed to the other boys. "Walk faster!" "Why?" James asked, but he quickened his pace. "My cousins. They're following us."

"You're cousins?" Peter squeaked. "I'll just be off. I thought of another place to find Remus! Bye fellas!" And like that, Peter was off, down a hallway that Sirius was sure he would get lost in. But Peter was no longer his problem, his cousins were far more important.

"I can't believe that you're this scared of a bunch of girls." James said, throwing Sirius a grin.

"Believe me, I'm not afraid of them. Just their older sister." James opened his mouth to reply, but then the shadows descended upon them.

"Hello, Sirius." Andy said, her voice cautious, guarded.

"Sirius." Narcissa said, giving Sirius a nod. As much of a disgrace as Sirius was, he was, after all, the heir to the entire Black fortune.

"Andy, Cissy." Sirius said back. He couldn't help but use the nicknames for the two as often as he could; it annoyed Narcissa so much.

"Why haven't you responded to any of Aunt's letters?" Narcissa said, getting right to the point. He was right, calling her Cissy had definitely annoyed her.

"You mean the howlers? Should I send one of myself screaming back to her?" He retorted, using a harsher voice than he had planned. He saw James take almost a step back, almost as though he had intimidated James with his tone.

"Temper, Sirius. No, please don't do that. Have you been listening to anything she's been saying?" Drommie said, her voice intentionally calm and relaxed.

"Yes." Sirius said. He bit his lip to keep from saying any more. Shorter answers were better, gave him less of a chance of blowing up.

"Well?" Narcissa said, before Andy could get a chance to respond.

"Sirius Black, you are such a disgrace to this family and anyone associated with us. You are dragging this family's name down into the mud, being friendly with Gryffindors. Mudbloods and blood traitors, all of them. Any word that reaches me informing me that you have been speaking to them and you will not be allowed to speak. Do not write to Regulus, any letter that reaches him from you will be immediately burned and he will be punished. Refrain from doing any more to endanger the family, Bellatrix is at risk of losing her engagement if you do. You will not be expected at Christmas, all you ever could be is a worthless son. I didn't even think you could cause the family as much shame as you've caused this time though. Worthless, utterly worthless." Sirius repeated that morning's howler, his voice hollow and detached, the words tumbling out faster than he could listen. But his eyes were burning furiously.

"Bellatrix? Sirius! You can't do that Bella!" Narcissa screamed at him, her cool forgotten in a moment of panic.

"Yeah, because really the top concern on my mind would be that harpy. In fact, I can't think of anyone I'd rather be more concerned about!" Sirius shouted back, his world glowing red in a fit of temper.

"It's completely unfair to the family! Just because you have to be such a disgrace doesn't mean that the rest of us need to be dragged down as well!" Narcissa shrieked, her voice shrill, taut.

"Because all the family's ever done for me is so great, that all I want to do is be nice to the family. Make sure the family's well-being is good! Make sure that some dark artifact hasn't found it's way into the Gryffindor common room, or something that could cause the family more shame. Oh wait, that would be a great situation for the family! Maybe I should start smuggling dementors into the great hall, just to reassure everyone that we're as twisted as they all think! Or maybe I should just leave the school since I"m obviously such a disgrace I can't even get into the most hated house!" Sirius shouted, his rage building at every word.

"Sirius!" Drommie's voice broke through the haze he had built himself into. "Temper! Temper! Focus Sirius!" She grabbed his shoulders, tying Sirius to someone. Slowly, Sirius took deep breathes, closing his eyes. Focus.

Scent. He could smell Drommie's vanilla shampoo, Narcissa's apple scent. He caught a quick whiff of something from the kitchen. Focus.

Sound. He could hear the nervous squeak of James' shoes, Andy's steady breath, Narcissa's jagged breathing. Far off, the spattering of students. Focus.

Touch. Drommie's hand was on his shoulder. His wand was in one hand. His robes were bunched at his elbows. A stray piece of hair tickled his face. Focus.

Sight. Hardest to focus. Slowly, his eyes opened. He looked to the right. A few feet ahead James was standing, looking frightened. Narcissa to the left of Drommie, her eyes murderous, but she had also calmed. Finally, Sirius looked straight ahead into Andy's gaze. He met her eyes and nodded. Focused.

Andy gave him a soft smile in return. "Sirius, just think before you act. Focus. Ok?"

Sirius just nodded, he didn't trust himself to speak quite yet. Drommie gave him a knowing look, then turned to leave. As she left she grabbed Narcissa's arm, and the two sisters left as shadows, the same way they had arrived.

James gave Sirius a long searching look, raising one eyebrow curiosley. He would want a story later, but Sirius couldn't speak right now. Not now. His temper was already too high, he didn't want to explode at James. Focus. He returned James' gaze, silently promising to talk later. James nodded.

"Come on, we have potions. We don't want to get another detention already, Remus will kill us." James said. Sirius gave a soft chuckle, focusing on his Gryffindor friends instead of relatives. Focusing on someone else.

Sirius gave a nod, he would have to keep quiet for a little longer. But James was right, and was looking at him expectantly. The two stepped off together, James keeping an agreeable silence, Sirius trying to forget things he knew he never would.

~Cesser~

Remus didn't return all of Monday, but Peter was thrilled to see him return Tuesday at lunchtime, while Sirius and James had their heads buried together, discussing something secret. They all were waiting outside, trying to con older students into bringing them food, since they still were green. They had found the kitchens last night for dinner, and had just skipped breakfast, but they were quite hungry by lunch. But none of them were willing to risk another detention for something so stupid.

"Remus!" He cried, proud to have noticed Remus first.

"Hello, Peter." Remus said, sitting down on the floor beside Peter. Peter noticed that he winced slightly as he sat down, but he could tell that Remus didn't want anyone else to know. Peter wondered what Remus had been doing, after disappearing for two or so days.

"Remus!" James and Sirius cried together.

"Where were you?" Sirius asked accusingly.

"We checked all over for you!" James contributed.

"I even found the library." Peter said, not wanting all the credit to go to the others.

"Good job Peter. Where was all over, James?" Remus replied, his voice hoarse and diplomatic. Remus seemed to sense the slight tension that Peter was feeling.

"We checked the kitchens, the dorm, the library, all around the grounds, and the Quidditch pitch." James said.

"Did you try the infirmary?" Remus asked. There was a trace of something in his voice that Peter couldn't quite detect, was it embarrassment? Or was that fear driving his statement? Peter couldn't tell.

"Oh. No." Sirius said.

"Well, that's where I was, Sirius. Madame Pomfrey is quite nice."

"Why were you there?" James asked.

"Oh, I just wanted to go visit. I thought it'd be fun to lounge around on a bed all day, and not go to classes. That's obviously why I went." Remus deadpanned.

"Ok, ok. Are you feeling better now?" Sirius said, his voice a tad worried.

"Yes, I'm fine. How are you all?" Remus replied, his voice weak. Maybe it was a cold that affected his throat.

"We're good." James said, answering for them all.

"Are you sure?" Remus said.

"Yes?"

"Oh, you were all looking a bit green around the gills." Remus replied, a slight grin to his voice.

They all looked at each other in confusion before Sirius got the joke. He started laughing, and eventually Peter and James caught on.

"How did this happen?" Remus asked, gesturing around them.

"How did what happen?" James said.

"The green or the sitting in the hall?" Sirius finished.

"I'd like to hear both. And I'd like an explanation of the addition of detention slips to the wall." Remus said, his voice weak but his resolve firm.

"Well, we're sitting in the hall because we can't find the kitchens again, and McGonagall will give us detention if we're still dyed green. So we're avoiding her." Peter said, his stomach growling a little as he talked. Remus rolled his eyes.

"Detentions?" He said, turning to James for an explanation.

"Sirius and I were passing notes in her class and got caught. But it won't happen next time."

"The green?" Now Remus was looking at Sirius, as though he knew that Sirius was the cause for the mess.

"Ah yes, the green. Well, you see my good fellow, I had woken early in the day to a solitary dorm.."

* * *

><p>"You missed history of magic and transfiguration!" Peter said accusingly as the four left the kitchens. Remus had known exactly where they were, and they were all happy to get something to eat. Remus hadn't eaten much though, but Peter supposed that he was still recovering from his bug.<p>

"Yes. I did. But I'm here for flying and defense at least." Remus replied, his tone slightly regretful at missing house.

"Do you like flying?" Peter asked. James and Sirius were fairly running ahead, so eager to get on brooms.

"I've never been before, but I suppose it will be all right. Do you?"

"I like watching Quidditch, but I don't like flying as well. I'm a bit afraid of heights." Peter said. James was now making motions with his hands, detailing a match he had seen recently. Peter smiled, he remembered how James had done the same thing when he had first met him.

"I've never seen Quidditch before. What's it like?" Remus asked, his voice genuinly curious. Despite Remus' soft voice, James still managed to catch what he was saying, and turned around in shock.

"You've never seen a match before? That's awful! I met Peter at a match. I better explain the whole game to you! I would be shirking in my duty as your roommate if I didn't. First you have the chasers, they're the best, they have the quaffle..." James started. Peter mostly tuned out the rest of it, and instead turned to Sirius to talk.

"So you like Quidditch I assume?" Peter asked.

"You know what they say about assuming! Yeah, I like it. I've only ever been to one game though." Sirius said, ducking his head a bit. Peter supposed that Sirius was ashamed of the fact, as James rambled on and on about all the moves and games he had seen.

"I've only been to a few myself. What do they say about assuming?"

"I like flying though. But I don't often get a chance to fly. Do you fly?" Sirius said, ignoring Peter's repeated question.

"I'm a bit afraid of heights. So I'm not very good at it. And I only ever get a chance when my mum's not looking." Peter replied, ignoring Sirius' snicker when he stated he was afraid of heights.

"Why can't your mum look?" Sirius asked, clearly curious.

"She's afraid I'll fall and break my neck. So sometimes I'll nick my dad's old broom and fly it for a bit." Peter wasn't as afraid of conversing alone with Sirius now, but Sirius' harsh manner was still something he was wary of. He hoped he wouldn't upset Sirius at all in their brief conversation.

"You nick your dad's broom? Wicked! Does your dad fly?" Sirius was clearly impressed with this brave side of Peter.

"I-" Peter faltered. Luckily, he was saved by James having finished his explanation, and Remus asking Sirius a question about the green gunk.

The boys finally arrived outside for flying lessons, and the smiles on James' and Sirius' faces just got wider and wider.

* * *

><p>"Up! Up! Up! Please? Up!" Peter said, pleading with his broom. Above him James and Sirius were already on brooms, zooming through the skies. To his right was Remus, and although Remus was still on the ground, he had already gotten his broom up. Remus was patiently waiting for Peter though, and Peter was very pleased about that.<p>

"Up!" And finally, the broom zoomed into Peter's hand. He mounted it with no problem, and after getting a confirmation nod from the teacher, he and Remus took to the air.

"Ah!" Peter yelled, after he dared open his eyes once. "Too high!"

"Peter, we're only ten feet off of the ground!" He heard James yell from somewhere above him.

"Too high!" Peter repeated. Stupid James and Sirius and Remus and them not being afraid of heights.

"Remus! Have you ever flown before?" He heard Sirius' voice from rather far away. Peter still hadn't opened his eyes, but was trying to keep up with the group anyways. He rather hoped that if he was about to run into them they would say something.

"Speak up! I can't hear you Remus!" The wind was rather strong the further up they got, and one had to shout to be heard.

"No! Peter, stop!" Peter heard Remus shout. So, he immediately stopped.

"What's the matter?" Peter yelled, desperately hoping that he wouldn't need to open his eyes.

"No need to yell. I'm right here. And you were about to fly into the castle. You're quite good at stopping quickly." Remus said. He had apparently flown to hover beside Peter's left ear, but he wasn't going to risk opening his eyes to see.

"Oh." Peter's tone was miserable, he was going to have to open his eyes to get turned around. Suddenly a thought came to him. "How high up am I?"

"You're level with the third floor I'd say. You're very close to charms room." Remus gave a slight chuckle. "It's apparently N.E.W.T.S. charms, Sirius' cousin is waving to us."

Peter raised a weak hand, hoping that it was close to a wave, and finalized his plan.

"I think I'll be going now." Peter said to Remus, and slowly, he began to lower himself to the ground.

"You're just going to drift down like that?"

"Yes. Once my feet hit the ground I will open my eyes. But not one moment before that. I've practiced flying with my eyes closed lots, don't worry."

Remus' tone was amused. "You fly with your eyes closed often?"

"Yes. I like flying. I don't like heights. It works out."

"I'm rather impressed I have to say." Remus was apparently following Peter to the ground.

"I'm so glad." Peter said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Finally, he felt his feet hit solid ground.

He opened his eyes then, looking straight ahead in case he wasn't really on the ground yet, and immediately screamed.

"What?" Remus said, landing beside Peter.

"I was this close to the castle and you let me fly with my eyes closed?" There was only about a hand's length between the castle and Peter, he was actually impressed with himself, but Remus didn't need to know that.

"Well, you seemed fine.." Remus started, but stopped at Peter's incredulous stare.

"Hey guys," Sirius said as he landed beside them, "Peter, did you really fly that whole time with your eyes closed?"

"Yes. I don't want to talk about it."

"Hey!" James shouted, as he landed between Peter and Remus. Peter jumped as he came down, let out an embarrassing squeak, and landed on Sirius' foot.

"Ow! Peter! What is it with you and landing on my foot?"

"Sorry.." Peter said, very afraid of Sirius' scowling face.

"No harm done. Let's fly more." James said, clapping a hand on Sirius' shoulder. Sirius blinked for a long moment, and gave James a look.

"Right. Let's fly." Sirius said. James smiled at that, and looked anxiously over to the group of girls.

Sighing, Peter rose into the air once more, closing his eyes as soon as he was higher than five feet.

~Cese~

"That was pretty nice flying, Remus." James said to Remus as they walked to defense against the dark arts.

"Thanks." Remus blushed. He hadn't forgotten the resolve he had made to stop being friends with them, it was just so much harder than he had thought. Even though he would only have known them for a week two days from now, he still felt as though they had known one another forever. If they knew him, really knew him though, he knew that they would never even vaguely be friends.

"You've really never flown before?" Sirius asked, incredulous at this development.

"No, I haven't. It was nice." Remus said, thinking back to the feel of the wind on his face.

"How have you never flown before? Your dad is a pureblood, right? And he doesn't have a broom laying around for you to try or anything? Does your mum not like flying or anything. Just, never flying just seems so awful." Sirius said in a rush, as if trying to express how distressed he was by this fact.

"Um.." Remus wasn't sure how to respond to that statement. Yes, his father had a broom, and his mum didn't mind it, but he wasn't allowed to fly. It was just one of those rules his dad had, like how he wasn't allowed to do wandless magic, or go to the village. Or go flying. Visit his grandparents. It was just one of those things.

Luckily he was saved by James pinching Sirius.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"You don't say things like 'isn't your dad a pureblood?'. Your family points that out, not you." James said, trying to explain it to Sirius without hurting his feelings. Remus appreciated James telling Sirius that. He knew that Sirius had grown up not knowing these things and was glad that James was there to explain it to him.

"Oh. Ok. Sorry Remus." Remus was fairly surprised to hear Sirius apologize, that seemed like something the stubborn boy would never do.

"It's fine. We understand it, but other people really don't Sirius. You just need to remember who you're talking to." Remus said. He knew it was hard for Sirius, his whole family had ostracized him, he was struggling to fit in with ordinary children, and all the while other Slytherins would trip or hex Sirius in the hallways. When he had first seen them all painted green, he had actually assumed that it was the Slytherin's doing.

"Yeah. I'll work on it." Sirius said, as they rounded the corridor, coming up to the defense room.

"Now, who can tell me the charm _lumos _does?" Professor Mant said that day in defense.

Remus, Sirius, and Lily Evans raised their hands. "Mr Black?" He called. "It creates a ball of light at the tip of your wand, yellow or white in color, sir."

"Good, good. Five points to Gryffindor. Now, I know that this is most typically not a defense move, but I'll be teaching it to you anyways. This is perhaps the easiest and most useful spell you will ever use. Just like Mr Black said, it creates light at the tip of your wand. For those of you who are familiar with muggle objects, it is almost like having a flashlight with you. Now, repeat after me: _lumos." _

"_Lumos_" the class repeated. Remus was rather happy to be learning a useful spell; he had learned several spells already, but none were very useful at all.

"Good, good. Now, try this spell on your own a few times, and read chapter two in your book. The questions at the end of the chapter will be due at the beginning of class tomorrow, so don't waste any time. The word to stop the charm is _nox. _Begin now please."

"_Lumos_." Remus said, happy to be gaining back his magical strength. It was rather irritating knowing the spells before, and not being able to perform any of them. The tip of his wand glowed a bright white, and he smiled contentedly.

"_Nox_." And just like that, the light was out. With a pleased grin, Remus turned to his book to complete the questions. -

Remus read the note that had just landed on his desk. 'Are you finished?' it said in Sirius' curling letters.

'Yes. Are you?' He replied, flicking the paper across James' desk to get to Sirius.

'Yes. I'm bored. Have you really read this book several times before?'

'Yes. Don't laugh, it's boring at my house.'

'I wasn't laughing. Yet. Why is it boring?'

'It's just my mum and I most days. My dad's at work a lot.'

'At my house I have my brother to bug. Is it lonely? Aren't you near a village or anything?'

'Regulus? Yes, it's lonely sometimes. But I'm rather used to it.'

'Do you have neighbors? Yeah, Reggie. I miss him I think.'

'It's ok to miss him. No, there are no neighbors, but a small village a bit away.'

'I want to come and visit you over holidays. I don't miss my mum.'

'Well, she does send you a letter of her lovely voice every day. No, you don't want to visit me.'

'I wish she would stop sending them. Why don't you explode one again?'

'I'd prefer you not to bring it up. I don't want to explode anything. I would like it if she would stop sending them as well.'

'Why not explode them?'

'I'm not allowed.' Remus threw the last note to Sirius just a second before class ended, and luckily could avoid the rest of that conversation.

"Mr Black? Mr Lupin? A word please?" The professor said as they were about to leave the room. Curiously, Sirius and Remus looked at each other and headed to the front of the room.

"So am I correct in assuming that you tossed notes all period?" He asked. Sirius started to giggle when he laughed, and Remus gave him a swift kick to the leg.

"Yes sir. Remus and I are getting quite proficient at throwing paper. If a test was given on throwing paper I do believe that Remus and I would win. Of course, it wouldn't be fair to the other students, so I do believe that you should allow other students practice time on throwing paper notes." Sirius said in such a way that almost convinced Remus that his suggestions were reliable.

Professor Mant just blinked, apparently too stunned to respond. Remus decided that he better intervene.

"Yes sir, Sirius and I were passing notes. We both finished our work early, and I didn't think it would cause anyone else any harm. We were both able to discuss ideas that we otherwise wouldn't have brought up." Remus said in a calm tone, letting the Professor think that they were academic thoughts.

"Er, right." Professor Mant cleared his throat. "Well, as long as you continue to excel and do not disturb other students, you may pass notes. But please sit next to each other, don't throw notes over other students."

"Yes sir. We'll be sure to be careful." Remus said, at the same time Sirius said "Absolutely, my dear professor. But I really do believe that the note throwing competition should be given some thought."

Remus kicked Sirius again, hoping that Sirius would stop talking the poor professor.

"Yes, well, um, you can go now. Thank you for this chat." Professor Mant said, a wrinkle of confusion between his eyebrows.

"Yes Professor. Thank you. Have a nice night." Remus said as they walked to the door.

Once outside the door, Sirius made sure to tease Remus about his responses.

"Yes Professor. Thank you. Have a nice night." Sirius mimicked, his voice high and pompous.

"Oh shut it. He was about ready to have permanent brain damage if you had continued talking for much longer. I merely got us out of trouble, and saved us from losing points. And we're now allowed to pass notes, so you can't poke fun at me."

"Remus, are you always respectful to adults?"

"Yes. Have you ever been?" Remus asked Sirius. For a minute or two Sirius stopped walking and stood with a thoughtful expression instead.

"Yes. A handful of times I have been." Sirius replied, his voice indignant.

"You really remember everything? For how long?" Remus said, realizing that Sirius had actually thought back far enough to know this, and not just guessed with his response.

"I remember everything from my fourth birthday and up pretty much. Drommie and I have done some experimenting, even _obliviate _doesn't get rid of my memories." Sirius said. Remus noticed that he shivered slightly as he mentioned the experiments. Remus wondered why they had done the experiments, and if his shiver was about them, or about the memories they tried to erase.

"You let your seventeen year old cousin do _obliviate _on you?" "No. She was fourteen at the time. Why wouldn't I let her? She's not going to hurt me."

"Aren't you not allowed to do magic outside of school?" Remus asked, frowning slightly.

Sirius just laughed at that. "No Remus, the Blacks are pretty much assured that they can do magic whenever and wherever they want. I got my wand when I was nine. No matter how old us Black cousins are, we're allowed to do magic."

"That's very illegal. And _obliviate _is a harder spell to master. I would have been worried about letting my underage cousin do that to me."

"As far as illegal stuff goes, underage magic really isn't that bad. And sometimes the risks are worth it to know the results.." Sirius said, his voice trailing off, his forehead scrunched up in something akin to pain.

"Sirius?" Remus said, after Sirius had been quiet for quite some time.

"Yeah? Do you want to discuss wandless magic next?" Sirius said, his tone harsh and his words obviously intended to hurt. Remus was surprised for a moment, but he supposed that Sirius had grown up, being taught to make words hurt. So Sirius wasn't really to blame for it. Remus realized that Sirius must have been reliving whatever he had wanted to _obliviate. _And since Remus had a few ghosts of his own he'd wish to _obliviate, _he decided to switch topics. Quickly.

"Don't you have detention with McGonagall tonight?"

"Yes. Oh Merlin. She'll see that we're still green and give us detention or start looking into the green or something!" Sirius said, panicked all of a sudden.

"Yes. That's why I brought it up."

"To make me panic?"

"No. I think I know a spell that will help. But I'm not sure."

"Do it then!" Sirius begged, holding up two green palms in surrender.

"Well, I've never tried the spell on a person before. Do you want me to try it on you? Even if it's bad?"

"Remus, you've just heard about how I let my inbred fourteen year old cousin try _obliviate _on me. Do you really think I'll object you trying something that could potentially save my life and detention record?"

"Your inbred cousin? And I thought you were trying to get as many detentions as possible?" Remus asked, momentarily distracted.

"Yes. Pretty much every pureblooded family is inbred, but the Blacks more than most. You escaped a pureblood fate with your mum quite luckily!"

"I'm sure I have. The detentions though?"

"Yeah, I'm trying to get detentions, but only for the right reasons. Having illegal green dye mush on my person is not exactly what I want to get detention for. Pranking every Slytherin in existence? That's a much better plan." Sirius finished, looking quite pleased with the ideas of pranking the Slytherins.

"Ok. I'll try it on you then." Remus cut in, deciding that he would never get a chance to try the spell if Sirius was allowed to keep talking. "Ready?"

"Ready as ever! Do I need to do anything other than stand here?"

"No, just standing is fine. _Tingere certa." _Remus said, waving his wandless hand in Sirius' direction. For a second it seemed as though it hadn't worked, and Sirius got a worried expression. But then the green all of a sudden seemed to melt off of Sirius, disappearing as it hit the floor. Remus and Sirius both let out their breath, giving each other a bright smile.

"That was brilliant! Where did you find the spell? Now we can eat with everyone else again!" Sirius exclaimed, relishing in his lack of green state. Remus was grateful that he didn't mention the fact that Remus had done wandless magic once more. He didn't think he could avoid the subject much longer. He would have to really start to learn how to use his wand properly.

"I look forward to eating like a normal pers-student once more." Remus almost said person, but then, was he really to be counted as a person? He didn't think that he really was one. Student though, yes. Student was a title he could claim. "I'm not sure where I found the spell though. It was just one of those things that sort of came to me. I guess I've read it somewhere before?"

"You know more spells than anyone I know. Really though, it's like you always knew that you would need to help us out of messes, and you memorized spells perfect for our situations!" Sirius said, appearing not to have noticed Remus' slip-up.

Remus gave a nervous laugh, he had memorized a lot of spells to help his dorm mates, but he had always memorized them with the moon and wolf in mind. He hoped his friends would never make the connection of his missing dates and all of the healing spells he knew.

"Let's go and get James and Peter! Then we can go eat like normal people!" Sirius yelled, grabbing Remus' arm. The two ran off to find James and Peter then, Sirius too hungry to wait another moment.

~Cesso~

On Wednesday morning, one of the boys awoke to quite a nasty shock. It appeared that somehow during the night, his bed had miraculously moved into the bathrooms.

In the dorm room, two boys were sitting on one bed, laughing at the shriek of surprise they had just heard. The one boy had moved the bed with wandless magic, the other boy agreeing not to say fourth boy slept on, completely unaware of what had happened. Until, of course, his bed was used as a shield from several flying shampoo bottles and toothbrushes. Remarkably well aimed toothbrushes and bottles. Then, as the fourth boy was hit squarely in the face with a red brush he recognized as his own, he awoke.

The remainder of the morning was spent in a mess of chaos, as the four boys chased one another around the dorm room. The dorm was much easier to run in with one less bed, they all remarked to each other. The shortest boy scowled at this comment, but had to admit that the rest of his dorm was correct.

By the time they arrived at breakfast, they were bruised in odd shapes on odd places, and had an even odder mint smell about them. But at least they were no longer green.


	8. Chapter Seven

**Hi everyone! Wow, this took me a really long time to get up. Sorry, I really don't know where my head has been these past few days, but it certainly wasn't on writing this chapter! The good news is I've written a bunch of chapters for later years. But I still haven't finished writing all of them for first year...sorry! I will get the chapter up really really really soon! I can't promise you any days, but it will be up sooner than this one was. So enjoy reading! And thank you everyone who has been reviewing, and thank you everyone that has favorited or alerted this story! I feel so proud of it. And thank you if your just reading it! So thanks all around for all! I don't own the marauders unfortunately. **

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><p>Within two weeks of being at Hogwarts, Remus had caught a cold. Or two. Maybe it was the flu. He wasn't quite sure what exactly he had caught, but he felt really quite awful.<p>

His nose was completely stuffed up, his throat burned every time he tried to talk, and his head would begin spinning periodically. Being sick was awful, Remus thought, as he laid his head down on the breakfast table. A few strands of his hair landed in his coffee, but he couldn't be bothered to pull them out. He was trying to concentrate on what Peter was saying to him; other than hearing his name a few times he really was quite lost as to what he was saying. After a minute of trying to listen to Peter, he closed his eyes and thought instead of hearing Peter's urgent tone. Suddenly, he found himself being hoisted into the air. It would appear that he was being carried out of the great hall, but Remus couldn't even care enough to be embarrassed. It was shaping up to be an awful day, and he still had potions to struggle through.

He had gotten very little sleep, due to astronomy the night before. This already was recipe for a bad mood, without the factors of a rather unfortunate morning added in. Remus' morning had been terrible, apparently an omen that he should have stayed in bed. When the howler began its first few notes, Remus had lost sight temporarily. Stars swam behind his eyes as he tried to sit up, he actually fell out of his bed. After he fell out of bed, he hit his head on his bed table hard enough to black out for a minute. When he came to, the howler was gone, and James was pouring water on his head.

After changing out of his soaking wet pajamas, he was informed that he had exploded another howler. He had then fallen down a flight of stairs and run into a wall on the way to breakfast, but he still refused to go to see Madame Pomfrey. But during breakfast he found that he couldn't eat anything, and instead was gripping his coffee like a lifeline. Eventually, even his coffee was deemed useless, and Remus found himself being carried to the hospital wing.

He really did try to protest being carried. Unfortunately, he felt sick as a dog, or a wolf, at that moment and his protests were very ineffective. He was trying to kick the person who's shoulder he was strung over but had found that his legs had been turned into jelly since he last used them. So Remus instead tried to focus on what was happening. Remus thought that Peter might be calling his name again..

"Remus! Remus! Oi! Remus!" Several voices were chanting. His head swam as he tried to open his eyes to see who was there. But opening his eyes was just painful and left him feeling dizzy, so he returned to a world of blackness where his eyes were closed. He focused instead on the large yard outside of his house. It was large. It was smooth. It was clear. It did not make him dizzy. It did not make him sneeze. It was a very nice yard.

"Hello Mr...Potter. What seems to be the problem?" Remus vaguely heard Madame Pomfrey say. Madame Pomfrey. She was nice. She was motherly. He had a mother. She was not a nurse though. But the matron was nice.

"Oh! Mr Lupin! Oh put him down on this bed over here. Yes, very gently." Remus felt himself being lowered onto a bed, his cheek hitting something much softer than the table or a bony shoulder. This bed was very nice, much like the matron. And his mother. Yes. His yard was nice too. His mother didn't go into the yard, even though they were both nice. Nice. What a nice word. Friends. Friends were nice too. Much like this soft pillow. Remus decided that he would sleep on the soft pillow. Sleeping was much nicer than being awake.

* * *

><p>When Remus woke up, he was immediately inclined to go back to sleep. His mouth was dry, the lights were extremely bright, and his ears felt like someone had been putting cotton in them. Not to mention the fact that his head felt as though it had been trod over by a hundred or so hippogriffs. Yes, sleep was defiantly better than this. But no matter how hard Remus shut his eyes, his brain would not surrender itself to sleep. That was unfortunate. Deciding that it was a very lost battle, Remus opened his eyes and abandoned all pretenses of sleeping.<p>

After opening his eyes for a few moments, he retracted his earlier statement about the lights being too bright. In fact, there was almost no light in the infirmary, the only light coming from the matron's small office. Strange. Remus suddenly realized how dark it was, and he realized just how many creatures could be lurking in the shadows. He began to hyperventilate, biting his tongue in hopes of calming down. His wand. If he had his wand, he could magic up a light. He knew a spell for light. But he couldn't find his wand.

In a fit of panic, his wand suddenly lit up from it's position. It was in his school bag beside his bed, cheerfully showing Remus it's place. Now that the room was lighter, Remus began to breathe normally again, just as Madame Pomfrey came out of her office.

"Remus!" She cried. "Here, here's some water for you. Now, I can imagine that you're feeling quite awful, correct?" Remus nodded, and she continued. "You've managed to contract quite a few diseases now. First, you've caught an unpleasant cold. You also have down the muggle version of the flu, though I'm quite unsure how you managed to achieve that. It seems that you've had milder symptoms of the flu for a bit now though. "

"My-" Remus' voice cracked, and he cleared his throat in an effort to talk. "My mother is a muggle. That it different than a coffee mug. I like coffee. Could that be it?"

"Yes, I suppose that could be. Now, I've gathered from your friends that you had astronomy last night? That appears to have aggravated the flu, and also made you unable to fight off the cold. Your friends also mentioned that you've been feeling badly for a few days now, but only when you fainted at the table this morning you came up here. Now why is that?" Madame Pomfrey asked, tapping her foot impatiently.

"I get sick quite often, and it always goes away in a short amount of time. Besides, I didn't want to miss class. Charms, potions, transfigurations. I hate potions." Remus said, struggling to sit upright in his bed.

"What else happened Thursday morning? Mr Potter mentioned you hitting your head?"

"I fell out of bed and hit my head on the table. Not for math though. Then I fell down a few stairs and sort-of ran into a wall. One in the I did not faint, merely rested my head for a minute or two, and found myself here."

"How many stairs? And do you normally fall out of bed?" Madame Pomfrey was giving Remus quite a strange look as he unintentionally kept adding in extra words and phrases.

"I've never fallen out of bed before, and it may have been a flight. Flight of birds. Or so. What have I missed?"

"It's currently very early Friday morning. You missed all of Thursday, and have slept for a solid seventeen hours. Now, I need to check a few things, so please be silent for a bit, but do not fall back asleep."

In the end, it was determined that Remus acquired a harsh cold, the muggle flu, and a mild concussion. And even better, it was soon discovered that normal treatments for cold, such as pepper-up potion, didn't work for him.

"It's probably due to your lycanthropy." Madame Pomfrey said, apparently trying to make Remus feel better. It wasn't working.

There was nothing for a 'mild concussion', since all wizarding spells were only for severe concussions. And due to the fact that Remus had the muggle flu, wizard medicines would not help with that either. But Madame Pomfrey was going to try and get ahold of a few basic muggle remedies. Until then though, Remus was resigned to bed rest until he could at least talk normally. Because of his concussion, he couldn't even read for another few weeks, and Remus was bored out of his skull. Sighing unhappily, he accepted a sleeping draught, and tried to get some of the rest out of the way.

* * *

><p>Remus awoke several hours later when he heard a soft whispering outside of his dream. It was a nice dream, about dogs and yards and mothers. All wearing socks. When he opened his eyes, he found three boys staring at his face, all with worried expressions.<p>

"What the hell? Hell. Hello." Remus said, since he really couldn't remember where he was.

"Hello to you too, Remus." Sirius said, his mouth smiling and eyes twinkling.

"Are you alive now?" James said, but more concerned than laughing.

"Oh damn. I'm in the hospital wing. Wings on a bird." Just like the flight of birds he had fallen down earlier.

Sirius was now outright laughing, Peter looked appalled that Remus could swear.

"Do you, uh, normally swear when you have head trauma?" James asked, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.

"I don't have head trauma thank you very much. Just a mild concussion. Cussing with a concussion. It was the birds' fault."

"Um, the birds? Who were the birds? I uh, don't remember any birds." James inquired.

"I don't remember who the birds were. But the flew. And drank coffee. It was their fault. Maybe Ravenclaws. Eagles. Snakes. Badgers. Lions. We're all lions."

"Um. Yes. We're lions, Rem. So, uh, do you know what's wrong with you?" James asked. Peter appeared to be shell-shocked, and Sirius was still laughing in the background.

"I have a cold. And muggle flu. And a mild concussion. Eagles eat mice. I have a bone to pick with you, James!" Remus said, suddenly remembering.

"You do? What does that even mean?" James' confusion just sent Sirius into a new wave of laughter.

"It means that I have a complaint to address. Like an envelope. With a big bird stamp. Maybe an owl delivered it. You have an owl. Maybe it was your owl's fault." Remus continued to chatter about birds and owls until James interrupted him. Sirius was busy making large flapping motions with his hands in Peter's face.

"Remus? Focus, alright? What bone do you have to pick?" James said, his forehead creased with worry.

"You told the matron that I fainted! I did not! You're making me seem like a girl, James! Probably a conspiracy by the owls. Maybe you should have been in Ravenclaw. They could use your clever plots and schemes with birds and fainting."

"Remus, if it wasn't fainting, what would you call it?"

"Simply resting with my eyes closed temporarily. No, I was meditating, and fell asleep. I was clobbered over the head by a plethora of insane owls. I did not faint though." Remus said, wishing that he really could stop talking about birds. Birds hated him, even more than most animals, and he wished that his brain would stop adding birds into everything he said. Birds. Ugh.

"Remus, you fainted. Why didn't you let us take you here before we had to carry you?" James said. Remus thought that he was the only one who really was keeping his head. Remus was very glad that James was able to overlook all of the bird comments.

"I thought I'd get better. I get sick often enough that this is a fairly regular occurrence. Maybe I have avian flu. Muggle flu. Muggle's need magic. And coffee."

"Do muggles have coffee?" James asked, looking at Sirius and Peter.

"I've never even seen a muggle before the train platform. But I suppose they might." Sirius said, looking very confused and oddly pensive.

"I think that they do. Coffee sounds like a muggle word." Peter contributed. "Remus, isn't your mum a muggle?"

"Yes. But she doesn't drink coffee. I've only ever had it at St. Mungo's. And at Hogwarts. My dad doesn't drink coffee either though. I hope that they have it. Coffee is wonderful." Remus said, a dreamy tone invading his normally factual voice.

"Have you ever seen any other muggle drink coffee?" Sirius asked, the same time that James said "Why were you at St. Mungo's?"

"I've never seen another muggle. James, I achieved three ailments all within a few days. I'm a regular to St. Mungo's." Remus was vaguely amazed with how Sirius and James spoke so often at the same time, yet they both had completely different questions or comments. He was also pleasantly surprised that the longer he talked, the less birds had to do with his thoughts. Good.

"So let's assume that muggles don't have coffee." James said.

"Do you know what happens to assumers?" Sirius asked. Remus had to bite back a giggle. A giggle, he decided, would not help his 'I'm-not-a-girl-so-I-don't-faint' theory. Also, Sirius did not need encouraging.

"How do you drink that vile stuff, Remus?" Peter asked. In the corner of his brain, Remus realized that this was the first comment that Peter had said the entire visit. Did the infirmary make him nervous, or was it Remus putting him off-ease?

"It's not vile at all! It keeps me awake, tastes wonderful, goes well with chocolate, is warm..."

~Cesso~

Early Thursday morning, James soon became aware of the fact that Remus wasn't quite up to par that day. First, when the howler arrived, Remus fell out of bed. Normally, falling out of bed was Peter's job, and Remus being clumsy was a very worrying fact. Then Remus was temporarily unconscious, and James was very very worried He knew that Remus hadn't been feeling well the night before, but he assumed that a bit of sleep would make him feel better. So when Remus fell unconscious, James immediately went into full panic mode.

"Try to wake him up!" James shrieked at Peter, who was staring at Remus in amazement. James meanwhile ran into the bathroom.

"Cup..cup..cup!" James muttered as he cast frantically around the bathroom for a cup. He had remembered that when a person was unconscious, it was good to pour water on their head to wake them up. Maybe. At least, James hoped that that was what was supposed to happen. When he finally saw a cup, he immediately filled it up with water from the sink, cursing the fact that he did not yet know how to make water appear from his wand.

James sprinted back into the dorm, dashing over to Remus' huddled form, Peter and Sirius crouching around it. Unceremoniously, James dumped the entire contents of the cup on Remus' head, and when he started to stir, ran back into the bathroom for another cupful.

After three cupfuls of water, Remus finally stopped woke up. Sirius laughed with relief, James joined in with his own weak laughter.

"Ow." Remus said. "James, why am I wet?"

* * *

><p>At breakfast, James was overjoyed to find that he was only a few seats from Evans. James watched her talk, laughing a little at the grand gestures as she talked.<p>

"James Potter!" Sirius shouted, while giving James a small smack on the head.

"What?" James said angrily, hoping that Evans hadn't noticed his unmanly yelp. James tore his attention away from her to look at Sirius, who was giving him a look.

"Oooh, our Jamesy boy likes Evans!" Sirius sang. "James and Evans, sitting in a tree- ow!" James took that moment to kick Sirius, as Sirius wasn't exactly quiet.

"Shut up!" James hissed, shooting another look in the girl's direction.

"Ha, you do like her!"

"No I don't! Shut up!"

"Yes you do! Reeeemus, Peterrrr" Sirius called, looking to where they sat.

"Remus! Peter! Help me here!" James yelled, stopping when he saw Remus' slumped form. "Remus?"

"I've been trying to get his attention!" Peter wailed. "But he won't look at me, and when I thought I had his attention he went to sleep or something. I think that he's fainted."

James frantically looked around the hall, cursing softly to himself when he saw that no teachers were left, and first years were really the only ones left in the hall.

"Right. We need to get Remus to the infirmary. Sirius, you're the tallest, can you carry Remus? I think I can remember where the hospital wing is. We need to go." James said, standing up and hoisting Remus' and Sirius' bags over his shoulder.

The boys hurried along the corridors, Peter talking frantically, James hurriedly trying to remember where the hospital wing was.

"I think that he hit his head. I mean, he fell out of bed. Then he fell down those stairs, and he ran into a wall. When he laid down on the table that made a large clump too. Maybe he's sick. He didn't feel well last night. Or maybe he.." James had to stop listening to Peter talk, he was making the situation more urgent than it seemed. But he frowned a bit, he hadn't noticed that Remus wasn't feeling well, and he had no idea what wall Peter was talking about. He had noticed the staircase tumble Remus did, but Remus had stood up and laughed it off, so he had assumed that he was ok. James decided that he would need to keep a closer eye on Remus.

"Down this hallway, I think over here. Yes, down here at the end! Here it is!" James cried triumphantly as they reached the hospital wing.

"Excuse me?" James shouted as he threw open the doors.

"Mr.."

"Potter!"

"What seems to be the problem?" She said, apparently not having seen Remus yet.

"It's Remus ma'am. He was here a few weeks ago, and he fainted at breakfast. And he ran his head and fell and wasn't feeling well and" James rambled on, well aware of the fact that he was rambling, but glad that an adult could now take care of Remus.

"Oh! Put Mr. Lupin on this bed over here. What happened to him? Thank you so much for bringing him. How long has he been passed out?" The matron fussed as she rushed around trying to make Remus comfortable. James tried to answer her questions the best he could, but Sirius and Peter kept adding to the story.

"Um, he passed out at breakfast-" James would start.

"At exactly 7:13 he fell down some stairs. Then four minutes later he ran into a wall." Sirius would butt in.

"Last night he had a sniffle." Peter would suddenly remember. Then Sirius would mock Peter for using the word sniffle. James would try to sort it out...and so on and so forth. Eventually, the matron was tired of listening to their slapped together tale, and dismissed them to go to class.

* * *

><p>'Do you think he's ok?' James wrote to Sirius during charms.<p>

'I don't know. He seems to get sick a lot.'

'And he's all skin and bones. And barley any bones.'

'James, you sound like a mother. Also, your handwriting gets more atrocious every day I do believe.'

'Sirius, I think that if your handwriting was any more perfect you would be a girl.'

'No, really, I can barely tell what you were writing there. I thought that you had written "sad hiss all skint sad pomos". Plus you misspelled barely. Barley is a plant. A green one I think. Not a speculation.'

'A speculation? Your such a pureblooded brat. You do realize that no one but Remus uses those terms?"

'It's you're Jamesy-dearest! At least I'm a cute pureblooded brat with nice hair. Plus I can spell and write nicely unlike the pureblooded brat to my left...'

'Hey! This hair will woo many girls someday.'

'Ooh, like Evans? Maybe I should tip her off...'

'NOOO!'

'James, you are only eleven. There's plenty of time to go and kiss her or whatever. We're trapped in this place for another six years and eight months and thirteen days and nineteen hours!'

'Did you really just do all of that math?'

'No. I made up the hours part.'

'You need to tone down on the smart thing. You may beat Remus for that, and then we'll all have to tease you instead.'

'I am not smart! A good memory is much different than actually being smart. Remus is the smart one. But he's not very good at accepting help.'

'Next time let's take him to the hospital wing before he actually faints at breakfast.'

'Agreed.'

~Cessare~

"I'm bored." Sirius announced from his perch on the bedside table. It was another slow evening, an evening that was once again being spent in the hospital wing. Remus still wasn't better, even after eight days of being confined to bed. So every spare moment was spent with Remus in the hospital wing, the three boys sprawled out on every surface as they tried to entertain the small boy.

"You really don't need to stay here," Remus started.

"Remus? Shut up. We're staying here. That's what friends do, they entertain each other when they're sick and dying of some strange muggle disease." James said. Sirius noticed the bored tone to his voice as James rambled off these reasons. Sirius was glad though, he was getting quite frustrated with Remus' obvious guilt at being sick.

"Besides, Remus, Sirius gets bored doing almost anything. I'm impressed that we've entertained him this far already." Peter said, casting a quick glance towards the taller boy. Sirius was actually pretty impressed that Peter had managed such a comment. Maybe he was getting over his strange fear of Sirius? Sirius hoped he was.

"Hey! I do not need constant entertainment! Why are you all so mean to me?" Sirius replied, adding in a fake sob at the end. Since Peter was obviously getting more comfortable with him, he felt at perfect liberty to tease the boy a bit.

"Sirius, you're like taking care of a dog for Merlin's sake. Not even a dog, more like a hyperactive puppy! You wake us up all hours of the morning, prank us every time we turn around, whine, eat like a horse, and never sit still!" James said with a large grin. Sirius suddenly had a flash of a puppy running around Grimmauld place, and he couldn't help but laugh at the image that conjured up.

"Sirius, as much as I hate to agree with James, it is true. You do tend to run around quite a bit." Remus said, his soft tone only heard when Sirius stopped his laughter.

"Fine!" Sirius said, pouting. He turned around in his seat, forgetting that he was sitting on a table, and promptly fell to the floor. He made sure to give them all a pureblooded scowl as he dusted himself off.

"We could play truth or dare." Sirius said mildly, as he situated himself onto the table once more.

"What's truth or dare?" James asked. Remus and Peter also had confused looks to their faces.

"Well, it's basically how it sounds. You either choose to answer a question, or you do a dare. You've never played it before?" Sirius finished with an incredulous look around him.

"No, we haven't. So how do you start?" James said, a frustrated sigh tacked on to the end of his words.

"Truth or dare?" Sirius asked Peter, his tone lighter than the smirk in his eyes.

"Um..truth." Peter said. Sirius smiled, apparently he was worried what kind of dare he would be forced to accomplish.

"What's the most humiliating thing you've ever done?" Sirius asked, a malicious grin on his face.

"Oh. Well, um.." Peter thought about it for a few minutes. "I once spilled lemonade on my great-aunt. She hasn't visited since."

"Just for spilling lemonade?" James asked incredulously. Sirius didn't see why he was so surprised; Sirius had been forced to write apology letters for less petty offenses then that.

"Mostly." Peter said, unwilling to offer up more details.

"Ok, Peter now you get to torment James." Sirius said, interrupting James before he could bug Peter even more. As much as Sirius was sure to bug Peter, he didn't want James to start digging into family matters. Family just made Sirius uncomfortable.

"Ok. Dare or truth?" Peter said to James.

"Dare!" James replied. Sirius smiled at his enthusiasm.

"Wait, don't get too outrageous. This is an infirmary, and Madame Pomfrey might kick you out if you're too loud. Unless you want to go. Then you can go. I don't really need company that badly." Remus said, his words picking up speed as they left his mouth.

"Relax Remus. We're not leaving. It's Peter making the dare, not Sirius. So don't worry." James reassured him.

"Sides Remus, do you realize that you've officially spent more time in the infirmary than in actual class?" Sirius contributed.

"Really?" Remus said, a slightly fearful look emerging on his face.

"No. You've spent fourteen days in school and eight days in here. Well, technically thirteen days in school since one day was spent on the train." Sirius said after doing some quick math.

"Why on earth do you know that?" James said, giving Sirius a rather suspicious look.

"Photographic memory, my dear Watson!" Sirius said with a grin stretching a mile wide. He knew that being able to recite useless facts like that generally annoyed people, but annoyed them in an admiring way. Not like he wanted his friends to get annoyed with them, but it was kind-of expected to annoy friends. And Sirius was pretty sure that his dorm mates would be his friends for a long while. Plus the Watson comment was sure to confuse James, and after Sirius looked at his face, it did look rather confused.

"Wait." Remus said, jerking Sirius out of his thoughts. "You just referenced Sherlock Holmes."

"Yes?" Sirius said, not quite understanding Remus' point.

"It's a muggle book, muggle author. I thought that you weren't allowed any muggle things." Remus said, biting his lip slightly, a wrinkle between his eyes.

"Muggle things annoy my mum." Sirius said, after freezing for a minute. In truth, Sirius rather liked a good book. After watching Remus practically worship the books for a few weeks, Sirius was infinitely curious. But he couldn't let anyone know that he actually enjoyed books for fun, he teased Remus about it enough. So when Remus had passed out and ended up in the hospital wing, Sirius had taken to reading the mysteries in the early hours of the morning. He still pulled a prank every morning, but found himself getting up a little bit earlier every morning to give him extra time to read. But James would tease him mercilessly if he knew, so Sirius just devoured the books in secret. But muggles certainly were good authors.

"Hm." Remus replied, a frown like he knew Sirius wasn't really telling him everything.

"I got it!" Peter shouted after a few moments of awkward silence. Sirius jumped, once more falling off of the small table.

"You know, " Remus said, giving Sirius an amused look to see him on the floor again, "that table is only meant for a small lamp, or maybe a pitcher and bowl. Why do you insist on sitting on it? I know you're skinny, but you're not exactly a short child. You're rather tall, and you don't fit on it at all."

"Remus, I am deeply grieved that you feel it necessary to insult my tall stature and lack of flesh on my bones. In fact, I think I will go and cry myself to sleep. Quite tragically too, be assured! I will sob such impressive tears that it will be almost as though I have become a modern day, and much better looking Noah. I will luckily manage to build a much better boat though, because it will be a broomstick! I'll bring along sensible creatures too, such as therestrals, or flobberworms. Although I secretly think that Peter is a flobberworm due to the amount he eats. I will also tame several herds of dragons! They will all fly this miraculous broomstick of mine, pulling it much like a herd of reindeer can pull a sleigh. Trust me, it would be much better for us all if you just apologized now!" Sirius finished with a haughty sigh. He then felt it necessary to faint onto James, causing James problems as well.

Remus appeared to be laughing too hard to actually respond, and he kept ticking things off on his fingers. After a minute he seemed to collect himself though, something Peter and James hadn't managed to do.

"So you've actually read the bible? And stories about Santa?" Remus asked with an incredulous look.

"Yes. No. I don't read books." Sirius replied with an exaggerated sigh.

"You don't read books?"

"None at all. Ever!"

"If you're so sure.."

"I am!"

"Alright. Peter, what was it that you were trying to say before our resident drama queen had his feelings hurt?"

"I am not a drama queen!" Sirius said with a heavy lower lip.

"Shush Sirius, it's Peter's turn to talk." Remus said, putting his finger to his lips.

~Cesser~

"I came up with a dare for James." Peter said, with a rather devious smile on his face. But he now knew that he had good blackmail for Sirius; that was a book of Remus' he had caught peeking out of Sirius' bag the day before.

"Is this a devious horrible dare that will embarrass him for all of eternity?" Sirius asked, rubbing his hands together eagerly. James did not look as pleased.

"Yes. Are dares allowed to be mean?" Peter asked Sirius.

"Yes. As mean as you want!"

"No, nothing too mean. Don't do something that will permanently embarrass James or anything." Remus said, as usual being the voice of Remus. Peter frowned slightly at this.

"Well, I don't know how embarrassing it will be. I mean, it'd embarrass me or you, Remus, but I don't think that James will be too scarred by it." Peter said, noticing that Remus flinched slightly as he said 'scarred'. Strange.

"Whisper it to me and Sirius first." Remus commanded. Peter once again had to hand it to Remus, he managed to sound commanding no matter the situation.

"James, go away." Sirius said simply as he sat down on the edge of Remus' bed.

"Please." Remus stressed with a slight glare towards Sirius. Peter smiled, Remus was determined to teach them all manners, despite the fact that Sirius and James had probably had manners drilled into them as soon as they could talk.

"James, please go away. Immediately. I want to hear this devious plan of Peter's." Sirius said, giving James a slight shove towards the door.

"Fine, fine! I'm going!" James said, throwing up his hands in exasperation as he stalked towards the infirmary doors.

"Good." Sirius yelled at him.

"Sirius, remember that this is a hospital wing and Madame Pomfrey will probably kick you out if you're too loud. Peter, please tell us your excellent dare."

"Ok. He has to very publicly tell Evans that he likes her." Peter said.

Immediately Sirius was clapping Peter on the back and grinning very widely as he loudly exclaimed what a good idea it was. Remus merely looked pensive, probably trying to decide if it would embarrass James too much.

"I think it's a brilliant idea!" Sirius yelled, only to be shushed by Remus once more.

"Ok. I think it's acceptable. Although, are you sure that James likes her, Peter?" Remus said before going back to biting his lip. Peter laughed a little at how many nervous habits Remus seemed to have; he was always doing something here or there. He wasn't a flurry of activity like Sirius, or a loud presence like James. But Remus was never really still, he was always writing or reading something, humming or tapping his foot. The calmest one in the group really might be Peter. That was a strange fact, considering how flighty his mother was.

"I'm sure. He always is looking at her and blushing, and his mom's a redhead." Peter stated, ignoring Sirius' loud laughter at hearing the last fact.

"How do you know what his mom looks like? And what does that have to do with this?" Remus asked, clearly not seeing the logic in this.

"I've met his mom, and he has a picture of his folks up in the dorm. And since his dad fell for a redhead, he has too." Peter said in a calm tone. Sirius was now laughing loudly enough that Remus hit him to shut him up.

"Alright then.." Remus trailed off, doubt still in his voice.

"Trust shortie here Remus, James really does like Evans. Why anyone would like someone that loud, I'll never quite understand though." Sirius said. Peter snorted a bit at that, Sirius was the loudest person he knew. Then he remembered what Sirius had called him.

"Hey! Remus is way shorter than I am!"

"For now maybe. But I betcha that Remus outgrows you." Sirius said, his tone smug, absolutely firm in his opinion.

"I bet that I outgrow all of you. Now, someone go and get James." Remus said, rolling his eyes a bit at the competition about heights.

"You do it." Sirius said, poking Peter in the stomach.

"No. You do it." Peter had decided that he wasn't afraid of Sirius that morning, so he was determined not to be bossed around any longer. Besides, Sirius most of the time was just bossy for the sake of it, not because he actually didn't want to do something.

"Fine." Sirius said, rolling his eyes as he stalked to the door.

"How do you notice these things?" Remus asked softly, as soon as Sirius left. "I mean, you take notice of all the small details that no one else really seems to get.

"I'm not sure. I've just always noticed them...too bad I can't remember these types of things for tests and homework." Peter replied.

"You're fine at homework Peter, you just need to have it checked through first. And you're not so bad at remembering things that you'll fail all tests or anything. Don't worry about it." Remus reassured him.

Peter started to reply, but they both were distracted by the train wreck approaching the bed that was James and Sirius. Sirius was being dragged by his arms back into the hospital wing, laying limp on the floor.

"Sirius? Are you ok?" Remus asked in a worried tone.

"The oaf is fine, he told me that the dare was to drag him inside though." James said, slightly out of breath from dragging 'the oaf'.

Peter started laughing immediately, while Remus was more polite. Remus just bit his lip as to keep his smile from becoming vocal.

"Wait."James said, dropping Sirius' arms quite unceremoniously. "Was that not my dare?"

"No, James, I'm afraid that it wasn't. However, I request that your dare is done after I'm out of this hell-hole." Remus said, sighing in frustration.

"You swear a lot when you're sick" Peter observed out loud.

"I suppose I do. It's a bad habit, I'm trying to get out of it." Remus admitted.

"James, your dare is that you have to tell Evans how you feel. Now give Remus the question." Sirius ordered from his spot on the floor. He was still laying sprawled out, eagle style, on the middle of the hospital wing floor. Peter was just glad that Remus was the only patient at the moment.

"Ok. Truth, Remus?" James said, apparently not fully digesting his dare. Peter smiled, he couldn't wait to see the explosion when he did realize what the dare truly was.

"Nah, I think I'll take a dare." Remus teased. "Truth I suppose then."

"Ok. What's your greatest fear?" James replied.

Remus suddenly got a panicked look in his eyes and he gave James a pleading expression. But James didn't notice it, as his jaw had just dropped wide open. Apprantly, James had just recognized the true essence of the dare.

"What?" James shrieked. "No fair! No way! I'm not doing that! No!"

"Remus said that it was legal." Sirius defended himself. "Besides, it was Peter's idea."

"Sirius said it was a good plan!" Peter retorted.

For another few minutes chaos ensued, as the boys accused and condemned each other. Finally Madame Pomfrey came out to quiet them all down. But she got the shock of her life when she realized that it was Remus yelling the loudest.

"Boys, I'll let you stay for another half hour. Then Remus has to rest. Remus, no more shouting. It's not good for you." Madame Pomfrey lectured. But she let them stay for a bit longer, so Peter wasn't too put-out by being yelled at.

"So Remus, what's your worst fear?" James said with a pout, deciding that Remus was mostly to blame for allowing Peter and Sirius to think up such tasks. James still hadn't agreed to the dare, and just appeared to be deflecting the attention away from him.

"Well. Um." Remus started, a small shiver running through him as he started to talk. He froze then and wouldn't say anything more.

"Remus, we'll all say ours if you tell us yours." James offered. Peter had been thinking the same thing, but wasn't fool enough to volunteer Sirius for anything. Sirius looked hesitant at James suggestion, but eventually submitted a soft nod.

"I'm afraid of hyenas." James offered

"Hyenas? Have you ever met one or anything?" Sirius laughed.

"No. But when I was little my dad told me a story about hyenas that eat little kids. Then two days later my uncle who I hated bought me a stuffed hyena. He swore it was a dog, but I know better. Two months later I left that stuffed thing at my uncle's house, and he died overnight. So it's perfectly reasonable to be afraid of hyenas." James finished with a huff.

"Right James. That's pretty reasonable." Sirius said sarcastically. James gave him a look.

"Are you being sarcastic?" James asked.

"Never!" Sirius said with a flourish of his arm.

"Right. Let's hear yours then!" James demanded.

Sirius looked reluctant to share, and shook his head.

"No, you have to. You said that you would." James insisted.

"Fine. My mother and my cousin." Sirius said, his face flushing with embarrassment.

"Why?" Peter asked curiously. His mother was Peter's favorite person, and he wasn't sure how anyone could be afraid of their. Cousins though, those could definatly be scary.

Sirius gave a dry laugh to Peter's question. "You just never want to meet them. What's yours?"

"I'm not sure." Peter said, trying to think of what he really was most afraid of. He would say that he was afraid of being friendless, but here he was, surrounded by friends. "Maybe snakes. I always thought that it would be awful to be eaten by one." He decided, knowing that he would be laughed at for being afraid of snakes. But it would be awful. He could just imagine some big scary Slytherin transfiguring themselves into a snake, just to eat Gryffindor first years.

"Of course, Peter." Remus said, trying to hold back a laugh. James and Sirius weren't even trying, they were just laughing outright at Peter's fear.

"What? Snakes eat very viciously!" Peter said defensively.

"Whatever you say, Peter." James said, quite patronizingly. "So, Remus? Want to tell us, or should we guess?"

"Um. Well, if you guessed, you'd probably get a few things. I'm afraid of just more than one thing...so I should probably just let you guess. Or maybe I just shouldn't tell anything." Remus said. Peter could guess from the unnecessary phrases that Remus really was quite reluctant to share.

"Just tell us the top few." James said, giving Remus a smile. Peter also gave Remus what he thought would be a comforting smile, so he hoped that that was what it turned out to be.

"Well, um, the dark, nighttime, the moon, death, being alone, having people know me, and therestrals." Remus spit out, all in one big breath, very very quickly.

"Oh. Um, wow." James said. Peter and Sirius both were dumbstruck, neither appeared to be able to say anything.

"We're a bit of a pathetic group!" Sirius finally announced. "Afraid of snakes, therestrals, the moon, dark, snakes, and hyenas! Pathetic!"

Remus cracked a slight smile at this, and James allowed a slight laugh. Peter gave a rye smile also, but all he could really think was how awful it must be for Remus, always being so afraid.

~Cese~

An hour later, three boys left the hospital wing. They had begged and pleaded with the matron to be allowed a little more time, but eventually Remus had been demanded to go to sleep. The three boys walked loudly back to Gryffindor tower; without Remus they were quickly becoming known as the loudest boys in the school. Remus normally would have calmed them down, pleading that other students needed quiet to study.

The only good thing about Remus being sick was the fact that the boys spent most of their free time visiting him, and less time planning pranks for the other students. That isn't to say that they hadn't been pulling pranks on others though, they certainly were.

The first week that Remus had been ill, the boys had released several dungbombs in the middle of dinner. But without Remus' finesse, they had immediately been blamed as the culprits. Two days later, they had read through several charms books, to learn how to turn hair different colors. The best part was, that it was from a second year charm book, and no one suspected the three boys as the perpetrators.

Now every few free moments were spent charming unsuspecting passerby's hairs different colors, and enjoying the chaos that ensued. But they all wished that Remus would be there to give them all a proper scolding.

Meanwhile in the hospital wing, one lonely boy cried himself to sleep for another night. He was extremely happy to have friends, but he was living a life of fear. He was terrified that someone would discover his secret, and he was appalled that he had listed to moon as one of his fears. He hoped that no one would ever discover who he truly was. Quietly, the boy stopped his crying as he drifted off to the soft world of sleep, under the comforting light of the hated moon.


	9. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

In which James and Peter get stuck to the floor, Remus dyes everyone purple, Peter gets lost in the library, and Sirius causes generic mischief

* * *

><p>"When do you plan on telling her?" Sirius asked James one morning.<p>

"Tell Evans? Do I really have to? Remus is still in the infirmary, and it's not too fair as far as dares go." James replied, as he tried to get his feet unstuck from the floor. "Sirius, what in Merlin's name did you use on the floor that I'm so stuck?"

"Some spell I found. I'm not too sure what it really does even, I was just trying it out and it happened to coincide with this early morning. But I'm not getting stuck on the floor, it's just you and Peter." Sirius replied, nudging Peter with his foot, as the smaller boy lay stuck to the floor. James sighed in annoyance; that was so typical Sirius. Cast a spell on the floor, have no clue what the spell does, and then laugh when everyone else gets stuck to the floor. Since Peter had fallen out of bed that morning with the surprise of the howler, he was stuck laying on the floor, his back glued to it's relentless surface. James just felt fortunate that only his feet were stuck to the floor.

"Sirius, can you please try harder to get us unstuck? We only have an hour or so before classes, and I'd really like to eat before I have to go transfiguration." James whined, casting ever spell he knew on his feet. Since he only knew a few spells though, most of them color changing spells, and one to transfigure needles and matches, he wasn't having much luck.

"James, I sincerely doubt that_ lumos_ is going to help your feet at all. Relax, I'm looking through this book. I think that Peter fell back asleep though. What class do we have first today?" Sirius said, casually flicking through a book, not at all concerned with James' plight.

"Where did you find that book? I mean, why were you reading book in the first place to find this spell? I don't know what we have first, aren't you the one with the photographic memory who's not stuck to the floor?" James moaned, desperately grabbing at his left foot with both hands. His balance was off though, and he fell forward with a scream. He reached out with his hands to catch himself, but that didn't work, and ended up stuck even further. Now, instead of just his feet being stuck, his nose, left hip, and both hands were stuck.

"James, you look ridiculous. I can't figure out a countercharm for it. Any suggestions? What day of the week is it?" Sirius said, shutting his book and sliding off of his bed. James groaned, it was highly uncomfortable with your head only being held up by your nose, but he couldn't move his head any to a more comfortable position.

"Tuesday. Get an older student." James called out as he tried to itch his left arm with his right elbow. "Sirius, my arm is itchy. Will you itch it for me?"

"We have history of magic first, so that gives us a little extra time. Who should I get? Which arm?"

"Left arm. What about Frank Longbottom?"

"I won't itch your left arm. Sorry. Who's he?"

"What do you mean you won't itch my left arm?"

"James, focus. It's nothing personal, I just have a vendetta against left arms and won't itch your left arm. Your right arm would be a completely different situation. Now, Frank Longbottom?"

"He's the second year I was talking to yesterday, he seems ok and probably won't tell any teachers. Will you wake Peter up? I'm really hungry. Could you please do something about this soon? Really soon? I'd love to itch my arm and eat some food."

"I'll go and find him. What does he look like?" Sirius said, walking out of James' limited line of sight. He hoped that Sirius was going to wake up Peter though.

"Ow!" A shriek came from behind James. That would be Peter waking up then. "Ow, Sirius why did you kick me? Have you figured out how to get us up yet? I have to pee."

"Sirius is going to get Frank Longbottom. I told him to wake you up so I wouldn't be bored while he was gone. Sirius, he's vaguely tall, and he has brown hair and eyes. He's friends with one of the Prewett brothers. Fabian I think?"

"Ok. I'll go and try to find him then. Wish me luck!"

"I wish you the best of luck that Peter and I don't kill you once we're unstuck from this floor. Do you know how dirty this floor is when your up close and personal to it?"

"I have no idea, and I don't care to learn. Bye fellas!" Sirius called as he yanked open the door.

"Sirius, I won't kill you, but please do hurry." Peter yelled after him. For a moment James and Peter laid (or sprawled in James' case) in silence.

"I'm hungry." James moaned to Peter.

"I think that I'll go back to sleep. Would you mind if I did?" Peter asked tentatively.

"Yes. Please stay awake?"

"Alright. I've been thinking about Evans and the dare and everything." Peter said.

"What have you been thinking about it?" James asked, his curiosity spiking.

"Well, I don't think that Evans even knows you exist. I think that you should do something to get her attention."

"You think? How should I do that? How do you suppose that she doesn't know I exist?"

"She never looks at you, and only talks to those other girls in her dorm. And some guy in Slytherin. Have you ever talked before?"

"No. But we've only been in school for almost a month so far. Darn. I need to do something to get her attention! How do I do that, Peter?" James asked desperately. A whole month of school was gone, but Evans still didn't know who he was. Although the whole getting romantic advice from Peter was kinda funny, his nonexistence really was highly distressing. "Wait, she talks to someone in Slytherin?"

"Yeah. The same one that you had a problem with on the train?" Peter said reluctantly.

"That's outrageous though! She's so nice, why would she talk with someone so dark and dangerous and so snakey and blah!" James finished, his mind racing frantically.

"Maybe they're not all like that." Peter said timidly. James was aware that he was scaring Peter a bit with his intense hatred towards the Slytherins, but it was just outrageous. Evans was so...innocent seeming, and they Slytherins screamed anything but innocent and nice.

"How do I get her attention?" James asked, knowing that he would need to talk to Evans soon. He couldn't imagine her getting mixed up in some of the things Slytherins got into, he wanted to keep her as far away from them as he could.

"Maybe you should talk to Sirius about the whole attention thing. I tend to hide behind the whole attention thing, I don't try to attract it. You and Sirius do though." Peter said with a slight laugh.

"Ok. I'll talk to Sirius about it. Where is that git though? He's been gone for a while. Much longer than it takes just to go and get someone to help." James said, as his arm started to itch again.

~Cessare~

"Damnit. Damn." Sirius swore under his breath as he reached the great hall. He knew that swearing wasn't exactly something acceptable, but he really couldn't help it. He had been raised his whole life hearing swear words in every language tossed around as though they were nothing, and had just picked them all up. They were a part of his vocabulary as much as any other word was; his family didn't hold swear words with the same regard the rest of the world seemed to view them with. But at Hogwarts he had to try and not swear as much, teachers loved to assign detentions for swearing. Still, it was hard.

None of the second year Gryffindors were in the great hall. Maybe they had a class earlier than the first years did, maybe they had classes later and were all still sleeping. But whatever the reason, Frank Longbottom was not in the hall. Several teachers were still in the hall, despite the fact that breakfast was finishing up, and McGonagall was giving Sirius a very suspicious look. However...

"Professor?" Sirius asked, after walking the long walk to the front of the great hall.

"Yes, Mr Black? Where are your friends?" She replied, casting a suspicious glance around the room, as if she expected them to pop out at any given moment.

"They're sleeping still. None of us got much rest last night, so they wanted to sleep in and miss breakfast this morning. Although Remus is still in the hospital wing."

"Why were you up so late?"

"A rouge owl found its way into our dorm, and refused to leave. We spent hours trying to get him away." Sirius said, hoping that she wouldn't see through his lies.

"A rouge owl? Hm." The professor replied, peering at Sirius with a great bit of suspicion. "Mr Black, what do you need? I don't have time for social visits."

"Right. Do you know where the second year Gryffindor boys are?" Sirius said, crossing his fingers.

"Why do you need to know?" Professor McGonagall said as she pulled a list out from her pocket.

"Frank Longbottom borrowed a book of mine, and I have some papers I'll need for defense in it. I'm hoping to track him down to get it back, but he's not in the common room or here or anywhere else I've checked."

"He has a class right now. But it should be over in ten minutes if you want to hurry to the charms classroom." Professor McGonagall said, apparently believing Sirius' words.

"Thank you loads Professor. But, um, could you please not tell anyone that I, um, was actually reading?" Sirius stage whispered, just to add a little more authenticity to his stack of lies. Humility was always a good indicator that a person was telling the truth, Andy had told him. Bella had taught him to always keep track of his lies, so he would need to remember to inform James and Longbottom of the stories he had invented.

McGonagall was looking at Sirius with an expression akin to amusement. "I'll be sure to keep the fact that you are literate to myself. Now, if that's all you need to say, I'll need to be going to my classes."

"Right. Thanks! I'll see you in class today." Sirius said, turning away.

"Yes. I'll see you then. Give Mr Lupin my best wishes next time you see him."

"Longbottom!" Sirius called as the charms class let out. He had recognized who James was talking about when he mentioned Longbottom's friends, so he was fairly confident that the tall boy he was shouting at was who he was looking for.

Sure enough, the tall boy turned around to Sirius, a look of confusion on his face.

"Yeah?" Longbottom said. "What do you need?"

"Hi. I'm James Potter friend, and, um, we have a slight situation up in the dorm rooms. James suggested that I go and get you to help us with it." Sirius said, shuffling his feet nervously. He thought he might as well play up the role of a scared firstie.

"Alright. I don't have any classes for another hour, so I could help you I guess. What's the problem?" Longbottom replied, following Sirius down the hall.

"I, uh, may have accidentally stuck my dorm mates to the floor." Sirius said, trying not to grin with pride. Be the ashamed little kid that people wanted you to be, they're more willing to help a scared kid than a boasting one.

"How did you manage that?"

"Some spell I found in a book. I didn't actually look to see what it would do, I just casted it. Now I can't figure out how to undo it." Sirius said, turning down into another hallway.

"Where are we going? Isn't the tower the other way?" Longbottom said, halting at the edge of the turn.

"Yeah, but we need to stop at the kitchens. James and Peter will kill me if they don't get any food." Sirius said.

"You know where the kitchens are? I've been looking for the kitchen for a few months now!" Longbottom said, hurrying along eagerly now.

"We found them within the first week here." Sirius said with a shrug. "We're pretty persistent."

"Jamesie-boy! Peter-weter! I come bearing older student and food! If you can get your mouths unstuck that is." Sirius called as he opened the door. "Longbottom, you might not want to come in. You might get stuck too."

"Sirius! Where in Merlin's blazing pants have you been?" James yelled. Sirius suddenly was struck with the thought of how incredibly glad he was that James was still stuck to the floor, and knew almost no spells.

"I brought you some food. And I got Longbottom, and Minnie thinks that I'm a literate student. I'd have to say that it's been a fairly successful time." Sirius said, digging through his stuff for the book with the spell. "Longbottom, here's the spell that I used." Sirius said, showing him the page.

"Hi Potter, Pettigrew." Longbottom said from his position in the doorway. "Ok. Um, I think I might be able to undo this. Do you have a charms book maybe?"

"Yeah, sure. It would be..um..." Sirius said, throwing some things out of his trunk.

"Sirius, just get Remus'. His trunk is actually organized." James called. "My arm is insanely itchy right now. I am going to kill you when my nose isn't stuck to the dorm room floor."

"Save your griping for later James. Where's your book? Remus has his with him it would appear." Sirius said, tossing a pair of socks at James' head.

"I dunno. Maybe under my bed? We don't have charms today. How would I know where it is? Peter, where's yours?"

"I don't think I still own my charms book..." Peter started.

~Cessare~

"Thanks loads and loads." Peter said to the second year as they walked out the door. "I might have died of starvation if I had to lay there any longer."

"Yeah, thanks loads Frank. My arm was getting really itchy, and Sirius has some problem with left arms, so he wouldn't itch it for me. So really thanks." James said, throwing Sirius a nasty look.

"Thanks Longbottom. Thanks for saving me from a lifetime of itching arms and feeding some idiots who got stuck to the floor." Sirius said begrudgingly. Peter supposed that that was the closest to an apology Peter and James would be getting. But Peter was just grateful to no longer be stuck to the floor, he didn't mind the lack of apology.

"No problem. Just, uh, don't get stuck to any more floors, and Sirius, please never try that spell ever again. Until you learn the countercharm to it or whatever." Longbottom said, giving Sirius a teasing grin.

"Yeah yeah yeah. Just cause some babies can't handle being stuck on the floor for a few hours..."

"Babies? Babies? Sirius, my nose was glued to the dorm room floor for an hour and a half. I had to sneeze the whole time so badly, but I couldn't even! And my arm? I think I've itched a whole in it so far." James cried out. Peter looked at the arm that James had been scratching, and noticed how red it was getting. It seemed that James had been itching it the whole time since his arm was freed.

"I'm just glad that I landed on my back. I got a nice nap. What class do we have next?" Peter said, as he munched on some of the toast Sirius had brought them. Peter was pretty sure that he was never going to let Sirius bring food ever again though, he had brought the strangest assortment. A few things were normal, like toast and some fruit, but other things, like the biscuit made with hot sauce, were just insane. Why would someone even ruin a good old biscuit with some hot sauce? Sirius should not be allowed to create a meal for anyone other than himself.

"We have history of magic...five minutes ago. Huh. So Longbottom, how dedicated is the ghost to his classes?" Sirius said, picking up some of the food off of the plate Peter was holding.

"He doesn't even notice if you aren't there. I'd say just skip the class, he'll never mark you absent. Just make sure you get the assignment from someone. But history of magic is a class that you really can skip just as often as you'd like to." Longbottom said, walking towards the door. "But I have a class I need to get to, so good luck! Enjoy being free from the floor."

"See ya! Thanks again!" James called after him.

"Yeah, thanks!

~Cesser~

The remainder of September passed, and the detention wall grew, much to Remus' annoyance.

"You really got another detention?" Remus remarked as he walked into the dorm a few days before the full moon.

"Aren't you proud of us? I have eight so far. But I'm tied with James." Sirius said, proudly pointing to his most recent addition to the wall.

"And, oh look, Peter and I don't have any!" Remus said, trying to stress a point.

"Actually, I think that you'll stand to be corrected! For little Petey just got his very first detention." Sirius said, grinning maniacally.

"What have you persuaded poor Peter to do? Where is he and James?" Remus said, looking around and not seeing them.

"I think that they're getting food from the kitchen to celebrate. I was nominated to come back and wait for you, and we're having a party tonight about it!" Sirius said as he pinned up a Gryffindor banner over the doorframe.

"No, we're not supposed to encourage detentions. Detentions are bad. Where did you get the banner?" Remus said, rushing over to prevent Sirius from taping his finger to the door as well.

"Longbottom. Thanks. Now, have you heard of those muggle tricks?" Sirius said, jumping down from the chair he had been perilously perched on.

"I've heard of lots of muggle tricks. Which one would you be referring to?" Remus said, his voice cautious. Sirius with a wizarding trick was bad enough, let alone adding muggle ideas into the equation.

"The one where you prop water up over the door! Wanna help get James and Peter?"

"Is that really a good idea?" Remus said, massaging his temples slightly. The moon was in only another few days, it was a Friday afternoon after a rather long week, and he really hadn't had enough sleep to be dealing with this kind of thing.

"Yes. Why not? They would appreaciate it." Sirius said, his tone completely serious, and lacking of any amusement.

"Uh, well, let's think this through Sirius." When Sirius didn't respond he decided to give him another clue. "What will they be carrying?"

"Food from the kitchens?" Sirius said, a bewildered look upon his face.

"Good, good. Now, what will happen to the food that we are looking forward to eating?" Remus said slowly, pretending he was speaking to a small child. Not that he had actually ever spoken to one...

"It will get wet?" Sirius questioned. "Hey! Remus! Our food will get wet!"

"That's the spirit. I knew you'd get there eventually." Remus said, highly pleased that he had discouraged Sirius from this.

"Yeah, yeah. Well, can you fix it? Can we spell the water to be repelled from food or something? You have that one book." Sirius said, his eyes anxious. Remus sighed, he knew exactly what book Sirius was referring to.

"Yes, I have that book. Let's have a discussion about the books, ok?" Remus said, knowing that he had to breach the subject now. "Now, I know that you've been digging in my trunk and reading my books."

"How'd you know? I put them all back in the exact same spots!" Sirius said, an incredulous look on his face. Remus bit back a smile, he was supposed to be stern. Or at least slightly responsible sounding.

"Yes, you put them all back in the same spots. But you not only just confirmed that, I also knew what spells you were using from my books. James and Peter stuck on the floor for a few hours ring any bells?" Remus said as he knocked on Sirius' forehead.

"Oh. Yeah. Well, umm.." Sirius said, staring at his feet sheepishly.

"Sirius, I don't mind you reading my books. I'd just prefer if you would ask me first, and not take them out from my trunk."

"Why?"

"Because. Now, I may possibly know what page a good spell would be on..." Remus said, dangling that out there. Hopefully, Sirius would go back to the prank and away from thoughts of Remus' trunk.

"You do? Really?" Sirius said, his eyes lighting up.

"Yes. But, you have to promise not to use the spell on anyone other than James and Peter unless I'm there to approve of it." Remus said, hoping that this wasn't too large of a boundary for him to step over. He knew that this spell could potentially cause plenty of problems, and Sirius and James could be counted on to use the spell incorrectly every time. Neither of them had an ounce of forethought.

"Ok. Fine. Can we do it?"

"Promise first. I mean it, Sirius."

"Fine. ." Sirius said, all in one huge breath.

"Ok. That's acceptable. Now, where have you put my book?" Remus said, after confirming that it wasn't in his trunk.

"It's under your bed. You sure do have a clean underside of your bed. But, Remus?" Sirius said in a worried tone.

"No, I won't tell Peter or James or anyone else that you're actually literate. Sirius, the underside of a bed is supposed to be clean-ah." Remus said, unable to prevent the slight sound he made at the pain of having to kneel down.

"You ok?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. What else have you put under my bed while I was gone?" Remus said, pulling several more novels and other books out from under his bed that he was positive he hadn't put there.

"Other books that I've needed to hide." Sirius said, trying to act very nonchalant, and quite honestly failing at it. Luckily for him though, Remus was distracted.

"Ha!" Remus said, a triumphant look on his face as he shifted through the piles of books. "You did borrow my Sherlock Holmes books! And my copy of the bible? My book about America, and Alice in Wonderland?"

"Oh shut up. You do not breath a word of this to any single person!" Sirius said, looking quite frightening. Remus actually backed up for a second before he realized that Sirius was teasing.

"Right, right. Now, for the spell. I'm thinking a general repelling spell?" Remus said.

"But how do we get the food to stay alright?" Sirius asked.

"I'll just add in a food prep charm, one that's made for keeping food warm or cold or whatever, rearrange the words a bit, and there we go!" Remus said, unable to keep the smile off of his face this time. A very mischievous grin was on his face he knew, but he couldn't care less at that moment that Sirius was seeing this side of him.

Remus generally tried to hide his more mischievous nature, he needed to be a role model student, and not succumb to anyone's low expectations of him. But he loved the idea of a good prank or scheme; as long as he didn't get caught.

"Sirius," Remus began, an even better idea plaguing his thoughts now, "do you suppose you could get a dye-spell to transfer over to water?"

Sirius started laughing as soon as he grasped what Remus was suggesting, and gave Remus a hearty pat on the back.

"I don't suppose I could do it, but you probably could. The dye spell is coloris traiciem, and think really hard about what color you want it to be, while pointing at the spot that you want done." Sirius said, trying to talk between laughs. "Remus Lupin, I never would have thought that I would see the day you were so, just, bad!"

"Just because I don't have a detention record doesn't mean that I can't cause trouble." Remus said, tilting his chin up to look at Sirius defiantly. He really wished that he would grow a bit taller, it really sucked being the shortest kid in the entire school.

"Oh, I believe you! Now, we better get a hurry on this if we want it done before they get back." Sirius said.

"Ok, find us a bucket, and I'm ready to go." Remus said, catching the flaw in the plan.

"Can't you just, I dunno, make one appear or transfigure one?" Sirius said offhandedly, knowing that he would be hard pressed to find one in the dorm.

"No, you know that I very well cannot. Check Peter's trunk." Remus instructed, as he searched for the repelling charm.

Peter's trunk?" Sirius asked as he opened it up.

"Yes. _Repellat aquam_. Then we could do a... _cibum trahaxit_? But then if we combined them we could say maybe a _repllat aquam ciborum_? That might work. What color should we have the dye be?" Remus said, lost in his thoughts.

"Damn, you're right. Peter really did have a bucket in his trunk." Sirius said, emerging from the depths of Peter's trunk.

"You shouldn't swear." Remus said absentmindedly, as he muttered various Latin phrases under his death. Ablative or accusative? What would work better? Remus knew enough about Latin to translate or remember words, but he didn't really know quite enough about the grammar and mechanics to really make spells work.

"I shouldn't swear?" Sirius said, interrupting Remus' musings. "Do you remember anything at all about being in the infirmary?"

"Vaguely. It had a lot to do with birds." Remus said as he cast the spell on the bucket.

"Birds. And swearing. That was literally all you did, little Remmy." Sirius said as he stood back up on the chair. "How do you attach these things?"

"Don't call me little Remmy. I'm Remus. You could even call me Lupin if you'd like, but please not Remmy. I really have no idea. Isn't it supposed to fall when the door opens?"

For the next ten minutes, the two boys struggled to attach the bucket above the door successfully. They both got a bit wet in the process, but eventually they situated the bucket above the door. Even better, the water would now dye, and soak, everything but food.

"Now we just have to wait for them to show up!" Sirius said, bouncing around the room in excitement.

"They really should be here soon." Remus said, as he joined Sirius on his excited pacing. Even though Remus was incredibly tired, sore, and hungry, he really just couldn't sit still.

"Let's count down for it!" Sirius suggested wildly.

"1!" Remus started.

"2, 3!" Sirius said, grabbing Remus and swinging him into a waltz. For another minute or so they counted and danced, reaching 97 before they heard a creak on the stairs. Instantly, they both stood still and waited. But they weren't disappointed. For a second, the door opened and they saw two smiling faces, laden with food. The bucket seemed to hold itself, defying all laws of physics, and even a few of magic. Then, it all collapsed.

"Ah!" Peter and James screamed, dropping the food as they were coated in green water. But it was incredible to see the reaction to the food; the water jumped away from the plates in a wide arch. But as the food flew, the water flew too. Basically, the whole room was now soaking.

"Sirius!" James bellowed, his face furious, but comical seeing as it was green. It was even better since his hair was also green, and was so wet that it actually laid flat for once. "Why in Merlin's name would you coat us in water?"

"Why do you assume that it's just me?" Sirius said, barely able to talk through his laughter.

"Why would Remus do this?" James asked, a look of genuine confusion on his face.

"Oh come on! Everyone assumes that Remus is some kind of an angel, and I'm just the spawn of the devil. Remus, take credit where it is due, my dear friend!" Sirius said, gesturing with his arms towards Remus.

"Thank you, thank you very much." Remus said, surprising himself with a large bow. Last week he was sure that he would have blushed and ducked his head sheepishly, avoiding taking credit. But now? Here he was, bowing and taking all the credit that he could. He was becoming such closer friends with these boys, and that scared him more than anything else. They would surely discover who, what, he was if he let them get close to him.

"Remus?" James said incredulously. Peter could only laugh in response to this information.

"Yes? I'm Remus?" Remus said, a twinkle in his eyes. He was so happy right now, successfully pranking the people he liked best.

"Merlin, are you serious? You really did all of this?" James said, gesturing wildly to the disarray that the room had been thrown into.

"No, I'm not. I'm Remus. This is Sirius, he came up the idea of the bucket." Remus said in a calm tone, to rival James' frantic voice.

"But little Remmy here did everything else! He came up with the spells and gestures and kept adding on to the spell." Sirius said proudly, swinging an arm around Remus' shoulder.

"Don't call me Remmy." Remus said with a frown, shrugging out from under Sirius' arm. "I'm starving, let's eat."

"But what about all the water..." Peter said, but trailed off when he saw the food laying on the ground, perfectly fine, except for a bit squashed from the fall.

"Remus is brilliant. That's all there is to it!" James declared as he picked up a slightly flat piece of bread. Remus smirked a bit at how quick James was to forgive and forget.

"Cheers to Remus!" Sirius said over-dramatically, holding up a bruised apple and running it into James' bread.

"Cheers!" The rest of the boys echoed, and Remus' heart swelled. He didn't think that he would ever be as happy as he felt that moment.

~Cesso~

"Where's Remus?" Peter asked with a frown Sunday afternoon. He had a charms essay to write, and Remus was the only one patient enough to help Peter edit it.

"I dunno. Have you checked the library?" James said, looking up from his potions essay.

"No, I couldn't find it. Is that essay due tomorrow?" Peter asked, nervously seeing how much James had written.

"No, Wednesday. Just don't tell anyone that I'm doing it ahead of time, ok?" James asked, worry creeping into his tone.

"Sure, I promise that I won't. Will you help me with charms?" Peter said. nervously shifting his weight to his other foot. He really needed a good grade in charms, his last test had gone fairly unspectacularly.

"Sure, sure. Just let me finish up this last paragraph first." James said, flipping open his book to another page. Peter smiled a little bit, now he had two secrets about his friends that no one else was supposed to know. James did his homework ahead of time, and Sirius read muggle books for fun. But he knew next to nothing about Remus.

For the next few minutes Peter sat quietly and watched James write, wondering vaguely if he should recognize what James was talking about in his essay. Then he reflected on how he was supposed to find his way around the school. None of the boys but Remus were good with directions, so when Remus disappeared for a few hours, no one was quite sure where to look for him. Sirius was no help with places, even with his photographic memory. Peter secretly thought that he had a very directionally challenged memory.

"Ok, I'm done. What do we need to talk about?" James asked, throwing down his quill with a flourish.

"What does this wand movement here have to do with the way the words influence it?" Peter asked.

* * *

><p>"Where's Remus?" Sirius asked, throwing his cloak on the floor as he walked through the dorm room door.<p>

"We think he's at the library, but neither of us can remember how to get there to check." Peter answered as he looked up from his charms essay. James had helped him through a lot of points on it, and he was only a paragraph or so away from being done.

"Where have you been all afternoon?" James asked.

"Spending time with Andy. She has some kind of idea stuck in her head that after she graduates I won't be allowed to see her. She has something up her sleeve. Hey, are you two actually doing homework?" Sirius said skeptically.

"Peter here just needed some help with charms, but we're almost done." James said, throwing Peter a look.

Peter nodded in agreement to it all, and said "I only have another paragraph to go. Is it time for dinner?"

"We have about a half hour until it starts. Wanna go find Remus then get to dinner?" Sirius suggested.

"Let Peter finish up this paragraph before he forgets it." James said, throwing Peter a teasing smile.

"I'm almost done, give me another two minutes and I'm done. How do you spell 'inflection'?"

"Why would you want to use a word like inflection?" Sirius said. "I-N-F-L-E-C-T-I-O-N."

"Slower please!" Peter said, trying to frantically copy down the letters Sirius had rambled off.

Sirius obliged, and Peter copied it down. Mere moments later, he set his quill down triumphantly.

"I'm done! Let's go get food and Remus." Peter said.

"Sirius, do you know where the library is?" James asked.

"If you can get me to the charms hallway, I can get you there." Sirius said with a shrug of the shoulders. Peter closed his eyes in frustration, getting Sirius to understand how to get there would take all day.

"Do you know any way to get to the charms classroom?" James said, also sounding slightly frustrated.

"From the defense room I can get there." Sirius said.

"Why would you know that? We don't even have defense and charms in the same day." James complained.

"I don't really know why I know that way." Sirius admitted.

"Ok. Can you get to the defense room?" James asked, hoping that this would lead to the final step.

"I can get to the defense room from the astronomy tower. And the astronomy tower from the kitchens."

"Ok. How do you reach the kitchens?" James said, in a bit of a dazed tone. Peter wasn't even sure how many rooms Sirius had mentioned so far, and he wondered how Sirius managed to get to classes at a semi-decent time.

"I can get there from the quidditch pitch." Sirius said, his voice trailing off.

"Couldn't you get there from the great hall?" James said, a bit weakly. Peter was torn between laughing in amusement and groaning in exasperation.

"No. I know the way from the quidditch pitch and nothing else." Sirius insisted.

"Ok. Um...let's just go to dinner and hope that Remus shows up. If he doesn't, we'll walk down to the pitch and see how getting to the library goes." James decided.

After dinner though, the three boys received the shock of their life, and their plans to find the library shrunk. For Lily Evans walked up to them.

"Um, hi." Evans said, giving the boys a nervous look. Peter glanced at his two friends wondering how they would react to talking to her. Just as Peter thought he would, James was staring at Evans like he had never seen a girl before. Sirius started laughing the minute James got the dopey look on his face, and was too preoccupied to talk. So that left Peter to respond.

"Uh, hi Evans." Peter said, unsure if he could just talk to a girl like a regular person. He idly wondered if he was supposed to bow to her or something, he had never been taught how to properly greet a girl. Was he allowed to call her by her last name, or was he supposed to call her Miss Evans or Miss Lily or something?

"Hi. Um, do you know where Remus is?" Evans said. So she wasn't offended by Peter's way of greeting her. Phew.

"That seems to be the question of the day." Peter mumbled, then said slightly louder, "No, we haven't seen him in a few hours. We were just about to go and check the library for him actually."

"I haven't seen him in the library at all today, unless he's hiding in some obscure corner." Evans relayed.

"Oh. Well, I guess we'll go and check those obscure corners for him. He tends to hide out in those. Why do you need Remus?" Peter asked, suddenly remembering that Evans had wanted to find Remus, not just talk about his library habits.

"I wanted to compare some notes with his. We study together sometimes, and I haven't seen him all day to double-check anything."

"Oh. Right." Peter cast a quick glance at James and Sirius, who were now standing just a little further away, talking and gesturing wildly, but quietly. Peter decided that he could make his very own decision for the group. "Evans, do you know how to find the library? We know where it is, we could find it eventually. But Sirius is the only one with a memory for direction, and he can only find the library starting at the quidditch pitch to the defense room and charms hallway, kitchens, and who knows what else. If you knew a shorter way we'd really appreciate learning it."

"Sure, I know a shorter way. I can get to the library from here, or almost anywhere else in the castle. You guys really are just lost without Remus, eh?" Evans said, casting a worried glance in Sirius' direction.

"Yeah, we really are. Could you help us find our way there now?" Peter asked hopefully.

"Sure, now is fine. Just, uh, will Potter stop staring at me anytime soon?"

* * *

><p>"Here it is. Will you need help finding your way back to the dorms from here?" Evans asked as they stepped into the library.<p>

"No, I can get back to the great hall from here now, and from there I can get us to the dorms." Sirius said, nudging James with his elbow in the ribs.

"So you can memorize this way so we won't have to traipse down to the quidditch pitch anymore?" Peter asked.

"Yeah, we'll be able to find Remus loads easier now." Sirius said appreciatively.

"Thanks Evans." Peter said, turning to her.

"Yeah, thanks." James said, with wide eyes and a stupid grin on his face, saying the first words that he had said ever since Evans showed up.

"Um, you're welcome." Evans said. Peter thought that she looked more than a bit worried to have James' intense stare on her. "I'll be going now."

"Right. So where do we start?" Sirius said as he rubbed his hands together.

"We split up, each of us search a different section for twenty minutes, and we meet back here by the doors. If we find Remus, great. We get a prize. If we don't find Remus, we return to the dorms with long faces." James decided. Peter noticed that more and more often, they looked to James for instructions. He always seemed to have the best idea of how to do something.

"Ok. I'll take the left side." Sirius said as he walked away.

"What side do you want, Peter?" James asked.

"Right I guess?" Peter said. He didn't really see the difference that the different sections made, they all were the same. Windy, twisty, and impossible to navigate.

"Ok. Let's get going then." James said, as he walked straight to the center section.

For the next twenty minutes, Peter wove himself in and around shelf after shelf of books. Every so often he would run into the obscure table or two, or stumble upon some older years snogging in a corner. Many times he knocked over a stack of books just laying out in the middle of the path, and wondered why they weren't given a place on the shelves. After twenty minutes, he had to admit to himself that he was really well and truly lost in the labyrinth, and it was time to meet the others.

But he was incredibly lost. He wound his way back through the maze, but he couldn't remember where he had come from in the first place. He knocked over a stack of books he remembered knocking over earlier, and then ran into a familiar desk. But after he ran into the desk another two times, he was forced to conclude that he was just running in circles. Even worse, every couple he had found before seemed to have left he library as well, so he couldn't even ask anyone for directions.

He started to panic a bit, it was just a like a dream he had once had. In this dream, he had run for days and days in a white maze, being fed very few drops of water, the smell of food distant in the air. But he could never reach the food at the end. This was that dream practically, and he was utterly terrified.

So Peter decided he would just sit and wait. Eventually, someone had to stumble upon him, and he would do well just to sit patiently. James or Sirius should be along soon.

* * *

><p>"Peter! Peter, where are you, mate?" Peter heard a voice call. His heart jumped at that, he was saved after all.<p>

"Over here!" He called back to the voice. Was that James?

"I heard him, it was over this way. No, this way. I think it was the left shelves, not the right. No, we're not splitting up anymore." Definitely James. Sirius didn't talk nearly as loudly as James did.

"I swear it was-oh! Hey Peter!" Sirius said as he literally ran into Peter.

"Hello to you to. Can we pretty please leave?" Peter fairly begged.

"Please! Let's go. Sirius, do you remember the way?" James said, turning to Sirius with hopeful eyes after he gave Peter a hand up.

"Sure do! We go left at this shelf, then right, then four lefts, then-"

"We don't need to hear it, we just need to follow. You alright, Peter?" James asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. How long was I gone for?"

"We've been looking for close to an hour. This library sure is big. Let's not separate next time." Sirius suggested.

"It didn't work anyways, we didn't find Remus." James said morosely.

"Yeah. Maybe he's back at the dorms now though." Peter thought out loud, hoping that they would be back at the dorms soon enough. He was getting very sick of picking up stacks of books he knocked over.

"I really wish that Remus would stop these disappearing acts." James said as he ran a hand through his hair.

"It's like playing 'Where's Waldo?', but it's Remus, and he wears black robes like every single other person." Peter said with a sigh.

"Huh?" Both James and Sirius said, utterly confused by the muggle reference.

"It's a muggle game." Peter said, and started to explain how it worked. By the time they reached Gryffindor tower, the two boys mostly understood how the game was played. But they still were unsure why anyone would actually want to find "an idiot who gets lost in crowds".

"Remus!" Sirius yelled as he threw open the dorm room. But the dorm was empty, save for the bucket of purple water that drenched the three boys.

"Oh, come on!" James moaned. "Remus was the one who got the color off of us last time. I have no idea what spell he used for it though. Are we just going to be stuck purple until he magically reappears?"

"It's not such a bad color." Peter said, looking into the mirror. The purple actually wasn't so bad as far as colors to be went. "At least it's not green again. Or silver."

They all stood quietly for a minute as they contemplated the horror of being Slytherin colors.

"Let's start looking for a dye-removal spell." Peter suggested as he opened up the first textbook he saw. Unfortunately, it was an astronomy book, so he quickly put it down and hoped no one had noticed.

~Cese~

The moon held itself high above the earth, it's position regal and unchallenged by the night. All over, creatures were responding to the bright gaze it held, and bones were melding and breaking all over.

The wolf was completely under the influence of the moon. He howled at it, singing songs of pain and frustration, hoping that it would be able to free the wolf. But when no reply came, the wolf took his anger and desire out on the human living inside him. The human, trapping his majestic self away twenty-eight days out of a month. Ridiculous.

Inside the brain of a wolf, a small child shivered back into control for a brief second. He was able to stop himself from completely chewing off his leg, but after one glance out to the moon's pure light, he was forced to a back corner, and the wolf took over again.

But as the boy laid in the infirmary the next day, he still could remember that one look he had gotten of a full moon in all of it's glory. He remembered the soft glow it had had, so innocent, so unsuspecting of the horrific damage it had caused to his leg. He thought about the moon, how elegant it really was. He wished that someday, someday, he may be able to have a firm grasp on the moon, and not be dragged away, kicking and screaming. He hoped that someday he could maybe hold the moon.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Hi guys! I put the author's note at the bottom this time, cause I know that some people really don't like to read them, so you could just scroll on through if you don't want to read this! I sincerely apologize for this being so late. This chapter is one of my longest yet though, it's actually 24 pages long. I did put Peter's view in this chapter twice, I'm not entirely sure why I did it though...I'm sure I had a good reason at the time though! My email(I type this up on my iPad and can't upload it on the website from there, so I have to email it to a real computer) has not been cooperating with me, so it's taken a while. On the bright side, Pottermore opened up to the public! I'm so excited about that! So as always, thanks for reading! If any of you guys ever have any prank suggestions or things you'd like to see in the story, I welcome all suggestions! Just pm me or leave a review about it or whatever. I hope you liked the chapter!<strong>


	10. Chapter Nine

**Hi everyone! I know, I absolutely suck for not posting this sooner. I'm awful, really. And this is a bit shorter than usual too, so I'm really really really sorry. The next chapter should be a really nice long one though! If any of you actually read this, I've been super super busy lately. I'm in a musical that opens very soon, and I'm spending two to three hours at a theater every day that I normally could spend writing. It's also the end of the year, so I'm having more schoolwork to do, and have started on some summer acceleration stuff I'm doing. Plus I'm an absolute chorus geek, and the concert is on Tuesday(I have a solo in it! :D ), so that takes up loads of time too. Basically, I'm super super sorry, but I"m incredibly busy and there's really nothing I can do about it until school ends in a few weeks. I'm going to try to start updating every Saturday, but until it's summer I can't guarantee that that will happen. So I'm really sorry! But please enjoy the chapter despite me taking so long!**

* * *

><p>"We only have another week until Halloween! " Peter announced one morning as he tried to clean soap out of his shoes.<p>

Sirius had deemed it necessary that everyone's shoes were given a thorough cleaning, and this had been achieved by putting everyone's shoes in the shower, filling the shoes with 'Fizzle's Extra Bubbling Soap', and putting the water on full blast. Needless to say, there wasn't anyone happy with Sirius.

"Where's Remus?" James asked, furiously scrubbing at his own shoes.

Peter saw Sirius duck into the bathroom and idly wondered if Sirius had 'washed' his own shoes as well.

"His shoes aren't here" Sirius announced, emerging with a pair of black shoes clutched in one hand.

"Then what are you holding?" James asked with a raised eyebrow.

"My own shoes. Anyone know why I would throw my own shoes into the fray?" Sirius said with a look of minor disgust. Peter personally thought that Sirius deserved having to clean his own shoes, but he didn't voice his thoughts. Instead, he trudged over to the bathroom and grabbed another towel to aid him on his shoe cleaning quest.

However, James had no qualms with speaking harshly.

"You deserve having to clean your own shoes you git. Why in Merlin's best red robes would you do this all in the first place?"

"Merlin's best red robes?" Peter said, hesitating at the bathroom door.

"For Gryffindor." Sirius said, apparently under the delusion that he was being helpful.

"Shouldn't they have gold trim though?" James said, turning around to face Sirius in a look of genuine confusion.

"Then you should have said so in the first place!" Sirius nearly shouted, throwing up his hands(and one shoe) in exasperation. Peter watched as the rouge shoe flew in a wide arch through the air, eventually tumbling to a stop, and then rolling under Remus' bed.

"Oooh, now you have to crawl under Remus' bed!" James taunted.

"Peter?" Sirius said, turning to Peter, who was still inching his way towards the bathroom. "Would you mind crawling under Remus' bed for me?"

"Yes." Peter said, trying to inch his way to the bathroom without attracting Sirius' attention.

"So you'll do it?" Sirius asked.

"No, you asked if he'd mind. That means that every answer is opposite. So he would mind crawling under his bed." James explained.

"Thanks James. I think I'm going to go and clean my shoes out before we have class and breakfast." Peter said, running the rest of the way to the bathroom in relief. He had already gotten two detentions for being late, mostly to the fault of James' and Sirius' "shortcuts". Peter was now suspicious of anything that even remotely resembled a shortcut, but he had no other choice than to take them. Remus had been avoiding them all for a couple of weeks now, and he couldn't find his way around the castle without someone's help. No matter how hard he tried to remember the twisting passageways, they were just too winding to stick in his mind successfully. That was why, even after almost two months of school, Peter was still stuck following others around to class.

* * *

><p>When Peter came back out of the bathroom, holding the last towel to be found, he found Sirius' legs sticking out from under Remus' bed with books stacked all around him. James was laughing but still was helping Sirius stack every single book he continued to pull out.<p>

"What are you guys doing?" Peter asked, unsure how so many books had materialized into their dorm.

"These were all under Remus' bed!" Sirius yelled, albeit somewhat muffled.

"All of them?" Peter said skeptically. There had to be at least fifty books there, and Sirius was still only half submerged under the large bed.

"Every single one of them! I'm really not sure how he fit so many under here, or how he got so many into the dorm without us noticing." James said, gesturing wildly at the stacks surrounding them.

"Well, about half that we've found so far are library books." Sirius yelled as he shoved another stack out from underneath the bed. "And I still haven't found my shoe!"

"That's because it fell on the other side of the bed." Peter said, remembering how the shoe had fallen. Sirius and James both stopped short.

"Really?" James asked as Sirius started crawling out from under the bed.

"Yeah, it fell on the side facing Sirius' bed, not against the wall." Peter answered.

"Uh.." Sirius said as James ruffled his hair.

"You guys really need to pay more attention. How do you suppose it would even get to the side against the wall?" Peter asked skeptically.

"You know, just cause Remus isn't here doesn't mean that you have to turn into the smart-alack." Sirius said with a pout.

"That wasn't smart-alacky!" Peter protested.

"Uh huh. I think I'm going to find my shoe now. The companies a bit...stifling." Sirius said, turning up his nose.

"You know, Remus is going to kill us when he sees what we've done to his books." James said, ruffling up his hair again.

"Should we start putting them back under?" Peter said tentatively. His chances of getting breakfast and to class on time were slowly shrinking.

"You'd be willing to help?" James asked.

"I'll help if we can actually go to class on time today." Peter said.

"We need Remus back! You're turning into some kind of goody-goody when he's not here to take that role!" Sirius yelled, once again under the bed.

"I am not!" Peter yelled back.

"You know Peter, I think he's on to something." James said as he started to shove books back under Remus' bed.

"Ow!" Sirius cried. "That one hit me!"

"Sorry." James said, not sounding sorry in the least. Peter looked at some of Remus' books in interest, he really had a wide variety of them. Peter caught many titles such as "_How to Heal Poisonous Bites in One Spell_", "_The Differences of Being Schooled in America as Compared to Europe: Scholar's Edition_", "_How Phases of the Moon Can Cause Change in a Young Werewolf's Life_", or "_The Secrets Behind the Passcode_". There were plenty of fiction books too though, like "_Alice in Wonderland_", "_Tom Sawyer_", and "_The Secret Garden_". Peter even saw a copy of the Bible peaking out from under one stack.

"How did he get so many books into the dorm without us noticing?" James wondered.

"Well, some are library books, so he must be sneaking those in." Sirius said, emerging from under the bed triumphantly holding the lost shoe.

"And maybe his trunk is really a secret library of an Arabic Salesman who trades chocolate frogs for books?" Peter suggested after giving it some thought. He was genuinely surprised when Sirius and James started laughing at it though.

"That's a good one, Peter." James said, flashing Peter a huge smile. Peter smiled a bit nervously in return, deciding that he would pass his theory off as a joke. Even though he really thought he might be on to something.

"But why Arabic?" Sirius said after a slight pause. "I've never learned anything about them."

"Arabians did lots of trading and stuff. Right?" James said, turning to Peter.

"I have no idea. I only said that cause of that book." Peter said, gesturing to the book labelled "_Trends and a Brief History of Magic Carpets and Their Influence on Arabic Countries_".

"I swear, Remus has the most boring books in all of history." James said sadly, shaking his head.

"I'm kinda mad at him." Sirius said mildly.

"Why?" James asked. Peter wondered what Remus had done, and was extremely curious as to what he could do to avoid Sirius becoming angered with him.

"So first he's all good friends with us and stuff, then he gets sick and tries to avoid us despite being trapped in the hospital with no where to go. Then it seems like it's all going back to normal, and boom! He starts avoiding us all again, and I've barely seen him outside of classes for two weeks. We share a dorm for Merlin's sake! I don't even see him at meal times!" Sirius ranted, getting louder with each and every word until he was shouting.

"Sirius, calm down. I'm sure he's not doing it on purpose." James said, putting a hand on Sirius' shoulder.

"Like hell he's not!" Sirius fairly snarled. Peter was frozen in place, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do when a dorm-mate went crazy and he was stuck in the middle of it.

"It's time for breakfast." James said, giving Sirius a long look.

"And we have classes today." Peter said, joining in. He understood what James was trying to do, he was trying to distract Sirius from what he was so mad about. Peter had never known one child to be so angry. He had noticed that generally Sirius was just a happy-go-lucky hyperactive kid, but his buttons exploded when they were pushed. Peter bit back a smile at the thought of all of Sirius' buttons exploding at once.

"Halloween is next week." James added.

"We get to have a great big Halloween feast." Peter said, pushing all thoughts of buttons out of his mind.

"Quidditch matches will start soon."

"You're ahead in the detention race."

Slowly, but surely, James and Peter mentioned trivial facts until Sirius was calm enough to go down to breakfast. They only had ten minutes to eat by the time they got down there, but they managed to get to class on time even. Peter thought that without Remus there, that was a pretty good start to the day.

~Cese~

"We need a prank for Halloween." James announced, setting his things down in the dorm room that day after lunch. It had been almost a full month since any of them had last talked to Remus, but he decided not to dwell on that fact. Even though Remus probably would've come up with the best prank for them all to do. But James didn't need to think about that now.

"Where do we start?" Peter asked.

"Well, who all are we pranking?" Sirius asked as he pulled a piece of paper from his trunk. James was mildly surprised to see Sirius actually wanting to write something down, but decided not to comment.

"Slytherins." James said at the same time as Sirius, who answered his own question.

"Why not the whole school?" Peter asked tentatively. James grinned immediately, he could just see how amazing it would be. The whole school covered in...well, something.

"Brilliant!" Sirius exclaimed. "Let's get everyone then!"

"Great! Just what are we doing though?" James asked, grabbing a quill and writing 'who: whole school' on Sirius' parchment.

"You have atrocious handwriting." Sirius said critically.

"You have girls' handwriting." James retorted.

"Do not."

"Do too."

"You write like a chicken."

"The phrase is chicken scratch, you dork."

"I know you are, but what am I?"

"Are you three?"

"I'll be four in two weeks. And I still have nicer handwriting as a four year old."

"Were you born a girl or something? Girly handwriting I tell you!"

"Were you born a chicken? Or is your dad just a rooster?"

"Guys!" Peter interrupted. James looked at him sheepishly, Sirius just looked indignant. "Could we focus here?"

"Focus. Right." James mumbled, dragging his hand back through his hair. "We need to have some sort of idea to start with. Any takers?"

"We should do something creepy since it's Halloween and everything." Sirius suggested.

"Let's do something at meal time." Peter contributed.

"During the feast, or during lunch or something?" James said, pausing from his writing.

"The feast would be most noticeable." Sirius pointed out.

"Ok. So something during the feast, Halloween day, and we'll do it to everyone." James said, reading off what he had on the list so far.

"What should we do then?" Peter wondered.

"Should we do something to their food or to the hall or the people or drinks or tables?" Sirius asked.

"Let's do either the food or drink." James decided.

"I've got it!" Peter suddenly yelled, jumping up.

"What?" Sirius and James both asked.

"We have spiders crawl out of everyone's drinks!" Peter said, jumping up and down in excitement. Sirius joined him after a few seconds, and eventually James joined in with jumping as well.

Sirius suddenly stopped. "How?" He said simply.

"We...um, we put it...drinks." James said stupidly, momentarily stumped. He really wished Remus was back here to figure out what spells would need to be used.

"Wow, that's pretty nice James. Very specific." Sirius said, raising one eyebrow at James.

"You try and come up with something!" James shot back.

"Peter!" Sirius whined, turning to the shorter boy. "You're the newly elected smart-alack. Please drop the alack and just be smart for a minute please? Please come up with a new thingy?"

"Uh..."

"Let's just look through some of Remus' books?" James suddenly said, his eyes landing on one called "_Great Uses of Pudding in the Last Century_" sitting on Remus' bedside.

"Read? Outrageous!" Sirius yelled.

"Why?" Peter asked, casting a quick strange look at Sirius that James' would have normally missed had his attention not been drawn towards Peter. Or, more specifically, the green that was suddenly growing from his hair.

"Pete?" Sirius said in a what may have been a worried tone. James couldn't be bothered to look to see how sincere Sirius was because he was fascinated by the thing growing out of Peter's hair. It almost looked like a plant.

"I'm not Pete! I'm Peter." Peter said with a huff of annoyance. "Guys, why are you staring at my hair?"

James watched as Peter lifted up a hand to touch his hair, and jumped back as the green vine-like thing made a strange sound.

"Did that thing just hiss at you, Pete?" Sirius said in amazement. James was more interested in how it had made apparent attempts to bite Peter before he had jerked his hand away.

"Guys! What in Merlin's name is in my hair?" Peter said, quite frantically at that point.

"I think it's a plant." James decided. No other green thing could have so many leaves and stuff. A plant was really the only logical explanation. Well, as logical as a plant growing out of Peter's head could be.

"You mean there's a ruddy plant growing out of my skull?" Peter yelped, his voice jumping up a few octaves.

"I think so. It's sort-of looks like a vine or something. But with veins and leaves and all that other plant anatomy stuff we learned about in herbology." James said pensively.

"Can I touch it?" Sirius said, moving in to do just that.

"Wait!" James said, jerking Sirius' hand back. "What if it bites?"

"Oh yeah. I guess I didn't think about that." Sirius said, dropping his hand in defeat. James let go of his wrist, and stopped to think for a second.

"Peter, has a plant ever spontaneously grown out of your head before?" James asked.

"Uh, no!" Peter said as he tried to crouch down, apparently trying to get away from the plant.

"So then, the plant must have come from somewhere. Right?" James tried to reason. Like that would work with a plant growing out of his roommates head.

~Cessare~

"Did you eat anything weird?" James asked Peter.

"Nothing stranger than what Sirius had." Peter answered. Sirius snorted at this, his friends found his food combinations a bit, eh, unusual at times.

"True. Ok, what about any spells in class or anything?" James said, running his hand through his hair yet again. Sirius idly wondered if James realized how messy it became when he did that.

"The only thing Pete's done differently than us today is when we looked through Remus' books today, Pete opened a few." Sirius said, after running his memories back through what had happened that day.

"You opened a book?" James said in bewilderment, still staring at the plant-like thing.

"A few maybe..." Peter admitted.

"Why would you do that?" James asked.

"Just to look at them! Remus owns really weird books." Peter said.

"He really does." Sirius said, thinking of the few he had sneaked peeks through or read.

"Wait, wait, more importantly, Remus owns cursed books?" James interrupted.

"They weren't cursed books, James." Sirius said scoffingly. Really though, who confused cursed books with just charmed books?

"Huh?" Peter said, looking every bit as confused as James.

"A cursed book would, you know, inflict a curse on you or something of the sort? It might make whatever hand that touched the book cursed, or fall off or something, or it might actually curse you. A curse implies that it will harm you. Permanently." Sirius said, remembering back to his childhood memories of his stern tutor lecturing him.

"So? What were Remus' books then?" James asked, now poking a quill at the plant on Peter's head as he talked.

"Remus just had charmed books. I mean, this plant is only charmed with a hint of transfiguration. There's no curse to that, if it was cursed it would have taken effect immediately, or gradually decreased. A charm can take longer to appear, a curse wouldn't suddenly spring up a bit of time later. Basically, something that we recently said or did acted as a trigger for that spell to start working." Sirius said as he picked up another quill and joined James in poking the plant; he was feeling far too responsible just giving out facts and needed something to do.

"That's all fine and dandy," Peter said, "but what do we do with the plant in my head?"

"Technically, I don't think it's in your head." James pointed out, dodging the hissing plant. "Plus it's loads of fun."

"Would you please stop playing with the plant growing from my skull?" Peter said as Sirius accidentally hit Peter with the quill instead of the plant.

"Oh, lighten up Pete." Sirius said as he and James began a quill duel with each other around the plant, dodging it as it hissed at the pair.

"Peter! Peter! What's so hard about adding an 'R' to my name? Peter!" Peter yelled, causing the plant to thrash around more violently.

"It takes about a fraction of a second longer, and I lose precious time to my life. I may end up losing several years of my life just saying the 'R' in your name!" Sirius said.

"I don't think that we should try to get rid of this plant." James said, his eyes wide and a huge grin on his face as the two continued to fight with the plant.

"Agreed. It is far too fun to fight with. Hey! Did you hear how nice of alliteration I put it there? Far too fun to fight!" Sirius said, making sure to stress the F's.

"Isn't that consonance?" James said with a slight wrinkle to his forehead.

"I don't even know what those words mean! But please stop playing with the plant!" Peter said, sounding as though he might cry. Sirius bit his lip, he wasn't sure if Peter was really that upset, or if he was just a really good actor. Sirius had seen some of the stuff that Peter pulled over on the teachers; he had fewer detentions because he just looked so much more innocent. So how did he know when Peter was telling the truth?

"How do we get the plant to go away then?" Sirius said, pausing the fight and willing James to do the same. To Sirius' relief, he did.

"Umm...we could try to check through Remus' books again?" James said tentatively.

"No thanks. I'm not eager to grow tentacles or lose my toes or anything." Peter said, backing away slightly.

"Well, that leaves us with one choice." James said, turning to look at Sirius. Sirius didn't like where this was going.

"We go to find Remus."

~Cesser~

_Dear Remus;_

_I can only hope that you are keeping up with your studies; you should not waste such a rare opportunity. An opportunity like this will likely never happen again for you, so do well to fulfill it while you are able to._

_I trust that you are not becoming too close to any others attending the school. You know as well as I do that that would only be putting any normal child in such unnecessary and horrific danger._

_Don't let injuries of this month keep you from excelling in your studies. Perfect grades are likely to be your only chance to have any semblance of succeeding in this world._

_Best wishes, and hopes that a secret can forever remain a secret;_

_-Father_

Remus was incredibly conflicted. He had received a rare letter from his father after the October full moon, and it just made Remus feel even more guilty for being friends with such nice normal human children. But to top off his confusion, his mother had also sent a letter, sent even in the same envelope with the same owl. Her letter was the opposite end of the spectrum, confusing Remus even more.

_Dearest Remus;_

_How is Hogwarts? Are you enjoying your studies? It feels so strange to have you living so far away. You were always such a quiet child, but it somehow feels even quieter at home now._

_Have you made any new friends? I'm sure that your father will give you some speech about not getting too close to anyone, but do try to remember that not everyone in the world is cruel. Remember, you don't have to tell everything to someone just to call them a friend. You can have friends that you never share a single secret with. Just don't seclude yourself for seven years like I know you're apt to._

_Your father has been trying to teach me how to deal with owl mail, and I'm pleased to say that I successfully gave the owl these letters to take without any help. I'm terribly sorry that I haven't written before now, I just haven't known how to._

_I have to be sure to comment on your room though. I've seen how your bookshelves look now, and I am incredibly impressed that you managed to fit such a large portion of your collection into your trunk, at least a third of your shelves are empty now. Did you pack anything other than books?_

_I hope that you have healed quickly, and are feeling alright. Remember to make a slight effort in socializing, and take your nose out of your books every once in a while. But keep up with your studies! Please!_

_Do enjoy your time at school!_

_Best wishes,_

_Mum_

Remus wasn't sure what to make of this at all. His parents were essentially telling him opposite things, and he could feel guilt creeping up on him. He really really really shouldn't endanger any normal child's life by being so close to them, he already was endangering them just by existing. Maybe he ought to stop socializing with his roommates. So he made an executive decision, that one night after the full moon after receiving the letters. He would need to stop being friendly with his friends.

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><p>October seemed to drag on slowly, and Remus was lonely. Without friends and daily amusing pranks and jokes the days refused to pick up the pace, and every day plodded on. Every day he was tempted to go back and try to become friendly again, but it felt so impossible. He had ignored his roommates far too long for a simple apology to work. He would need something bigger if he wanted to become friends again.<p>

But did he want to become friends again? He was endangering them more and more with each passing moment he spent around them. Who could be safe from such a monster? His mum disagreed with what his father had said, but who was she to decide? Yes, his mum was great and loving and all, but she was a muggle. What did she know about magical children? His father had to know best. Anything else would just be too illogical for Remus to comprehend at the moment.

So Remus continued to remain distant, flying out of the dorm early each morning, and studying in the library until it was almost curfew. Bit by bit, his friendship with the other boys fell apart.

* * *

><p>But Remus missed them. Every day he felt as though something was tearing at him every time he saw boys laughing together. He missed seeing James ruffle his hair, Sirius' booming laugh, Peter's quiet observations. He missed perfecting the kinks in the plans for pranks, he missed reading through Peter's essays every night. Even the annoying things, like Sirius' morning wake-up calls or the detention wall, even those things Remus began to miss.<p>

But he pushed all of these thoughts aside. He was too dangerous to spend more time with the other boys. Instead, he met with an organized study group consisting of Lily Evans, one of her friends, and several Ravenclaw first years twice a week. Lily and Remus would often study on their own as well since few other Gryffindors seemed to take their studies seriously. Remus allowed himself to continue this socialization because it was completely harmless, it wasn't really a fun activity, it was just studying. And no one had died yet because a werewolf reading a book suddenly transformed and killed everyone in sight. Unlike the werewolves who got too close to their friends the night of a full moon and caused death and destruction to everyone within distance.

* * *

><p>Finally, by the end of October, Remus knew that he had to do something. He was going insane with loneliness. He ate every meal in the kitchens, mostly sat by himself in classes, and avoided the gazes of almost everyone throughout the day.<p>

Remus made a new executive decision; he would become friends with his dorm-mates once more.

How to apologize though? They were surely mad at him, a simple "I'm sorry" didn't cover ignoring three people for almost a month. He needed something to get their attention...something large, such as a Halloween prank.

Yes. That was it! Remus could plan a big Halloween prank, prank the whole school, and then the conversation and apologizes could come afterwards. Now all he needed was a prank.

Normally it was James or Sirius who came up with the ridiculous ideas for pranks, Peter added details, and Remus perfected the plan. But this time it would just have to be Remus.

He tried to think of some of the oddest spells he had seen so far, maybe he could combine a few? Such as the spell Sirius had found that caused you to be stuck to whatever you touched for an indefinite amount of time? And maybe the one that transformed any ceiling to ice with one easy spell (why anyone would want a ceiling made of ice was beyond Remus though)? If those were paired with a gravitational reversing spell...

~Cesse~

Three boys approached cautiously, one with an abnormally large plant growing from his head. The boys walked up to Remus, hoping to Merlin that he would have at least some kind of idea how to remove the ridiculous hissing plant.

"Um, Remus?" Peter said tentatively, the plant hissing at the same time. It had taken up an annoying habit of hissing every time Peter spoke, and that remained the only reason why James and Sirius agreed to find Remus.

"Oh." Remus said, a look of confusion, hurt, and finally understanding lit behind his eyes. "Right."

Remus pulled out his wand and preformed a quick spell. A minute later, a potted hissing plant was in Remus' hand, and Peter's head remained plant free.

"Here you are." Remus mumbled to Peter as he shoved the plant into his hands. "I really must be going."

And with that, Remus Lupin had fled down the hallways, leaving three very confused boys behind.


	11. Chapter Ten

Remus thanked his seldom seen lucky star that Halloween fell on a Sunday that year. Since the feast and every celebration would be on Sunday, that meant that he could take advantage of the Hogsmeade day Saturday, and spend all of Saturday setting up for his prank.

The castle would be nearly empty, and the first and second years were strongly encouraged to be outdoors on Hogsmeade days. Even better, he knew that James, Sirius, and Peter intended to visit Hagrid, the gamekeeper, that Saturday. Lily had organized a large study group that was meeting in one of the courtyards that day that included most Gryffindors, several Hufflepuffs, all of Ravenclaw, and even a few Slytherins. Remus could guarantee that no second years would bother him, and most suspicious teachers were supervising at Hogsmeade. Remus would essentially have the run of the castle, giving him the perfect opportunity to set up for his prank.

Remus had finalized his plan and was rather proud of it to be quite honest. He planned to launch the spell in several different hallways, but that led to problems of getting the timing of spells down correctly. But if it all worked correctly, it would be so brilliant that his roommates would have to forgive him! And if they didn't forgive him, well, it would just be safer for all involved.

The plan involved a small two foot square with Sirius' sticking spell in several hallways, the ceilings of all of these hallways iced, and a reversing gravitational spell. Remus imagined how wonderful it would seem if it all went correctly; one person who stepped in this two foot square would get stuck to the floor.

Then the timing spell would come into play, because after being stuck on the same spot of floor for twenty seconds, the gravitational reversal spell would kick in, and the person would go zooming to the iced ceiling.

If the ice on the ceiling reacted correctly with the sticking spell, the person should go sliding along the ceiling for several moments, completely stuck and unable to do anything to counteract it. They would zoom in one direction, and when they reached the end of the hallway, the spells would all release.

A cushioning charm would protect anyone from any real damage, and then the final spell would come into play. Remus was still stuck trying to figure out how to make it happen, but he wanted to try and color-charm the cushioning charm. It would be difficult, but Remus thought he could make it happen if he looked hard enough. A colored cushioning charm would ensure that he would know who all got stuck in the mess, and would tell him if any of his roommates had been caught by the trick tiles. Plus, everyone would be changed a different color, which was just an added bonus.

Remus could just only hope that it would all go correctly.

* * *

><p>Remus' first order of business that Saturday morning was to go to the library, with hopes of finding a book on color-changing charms. For several hours, he studied under the librarian's strict gaze, reading every book about cushioning charms he could find, then, after lunchtime, moving onto to reading about color-changing charms.<p>

Remus did know a couple of simple color-changing charms that any first or second year could do, and even one that made a person look as though they were covered in blood(James and Sirius had discovered that charm earlier in the month, and were particularly fond of using it on unwary students and teachers), but he knew the charm he would need had to be stronger than the pastels he could already produce.

Finally, after over two hundred pages worth of books about color-changing charms, Remus stumbled upon a passage that made his heart leap just a little bit.

'Some variations of color-changing charms could also be used, with spells actually being used in combination with other spells. These spells can be more difficult than most however, since the spell will actually require a transfer of energy. For example, an object can be charmed a different color with very little effort, and simply requires the right words spoken and the wand pointed correctly. But if one wished to transfer the color, such as anyone who touched a door handle turned yellow, this requires adaption of the spell due to the transferring energy rather from an object to a person rather than just from a wand to a person. This can be further complicated by trying to get the object to react to the color spell correctly, although for most objects, adding the word *adaption* and changing the color word of the spell to the ablative case should be sufficient.'

Remus read on for a little while longer, while a grin most would describe as devious spread across his face. This book, he thought, 'Impractical Charms and Transfigurations for Everyday Life', was pure gold.

~Cesso~

"Sirius!" James yelled, "Come on! We need to get this all finished before the feast will start!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Sirius yelled back, hopping on one foot as he struggled to get his shoe on.

"Could you possibly be any slower?" James complained, typing his foot impatiently. "We do have a deadline."

"What are you, forty?" Sirius said, finally standing up. "Oh gee, I need to get these things finished before my deadline!" Sirius finished in a flustered squeaky voice.

"Oh can it. Pete, do you have the goods?"

"Peter! There is an "r" in my name!" Peter said as he came out of the bathroom, holding several rolls of toilet paper, balancing his wand on top of the mess.

"Sirius?" James turned to Sirius.

"I have located my materials," Sirius said, brandishing his wand and a packet of Droobel's best gum, while mentally reviewing the plans for the day.

First, they would stick the toilet paper to the walls using the gum, since no one but Remus(Lupin! If he was going to ignore them, he'd have to be Lupin, not Remus) was able to understand the complex spell Sirius had misused earlier that year. Then, it would be covered with some fake bats Sirius had discovered in James' trunk. Finally, the toilet paper would be unrolled just as Dumbledore's speech finished, and would hopefully land on everyone. Sirius hoped that they would be able to use wingardium leviosa to flick the toilet paper out. And that Peter would remember what they were doing.

They were sneaking down to the Great Hall after lunch had finished, since only the house elves would(hopefully) be in the room, preparing for the feast that night.

"All good?" James took one final look around at the group, before they all set out the door.

"This isn't going to be enough toilet paper," Sirius said as he really looked at how much Peter was holding.

"This was all that was in our bathroom!" Peter said in defense.

"Can we rob the bathrooms going down to the Hall?" Sirius asked James.

"Yeah. We should grab our school bags though, so we can have room to fit everything in. And be inconspicuous," James said after a moment of deliberation.

After a few more stalls and false starts, the boys finally left the room, each holding their school bag and leaving as inconspicuously as they could.

"We need to set up an alibi for us!" James hissed to Sirius right before they left the room.

Sirius thought for a moment. "We'll make it up as we go along. Don't worry."

James looked doubtful but agreed, as they tried to walk inconspicuously down the stairs.

"Inconspicuous inconspicuous inconspicuous inconspicuous," Peter was chanting behind Sirius as they walked.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing?" James asked, wheeling around on the stairs.

"Being inconspicuous," Peter answered. Sirius thought he sounded very inconspicuous about the whole deal, and thought James should just let them go.

"Right," James said. "Let's go."

"Hey James," Sirius said as they reached the common room, trying to be both inconspicuous and loud enough people would take notice, "we should go do homework at the library!"

"Wow Sirius, that's a great idea!" Peter chimed in.

"Let's go this moment then!" James said inconspicuously. Sirius thought that even though they were getting quite a few stares, they were doing very well with the whole "inconspicuous" thing.

They inconspicuously walked to the common room door, then ducked out of the door as quickly as they could.

~Cesser~

"I think that was inconspicuous," James said, after quickly glancing around the corridor.

"A few people stared at us, but I think we go the idea across," Sirius mentioned.

"What does it mean?" Peter asked.

"What does what mean?" James asked in return.

"Inconspicuous."

"Er, to be not noticed. To be subtle?" James said, wondering why Peter hadn't just asked the question before the walk through the common room.

"Pete, you could've just asked beforehand," Sirius said, echoing James' feelings on the idea.

"Peter! It's just one extra letter!"

"But it doesn't sound as snappy," James said.

"My name doesn't need to be snappy," Peter said.

"Why doesn't it?"

"Because it doesn't."

"That's circular reasoning," Sirius said.

"What?"

"Is it?" James asked Sirius.

"I think it is," Sirius replied.

"I hear someone," Peter interrupted.

"Bathroom is up on the left. Be inconspicuous," Sirius said, starting to jog. James followed behind, glancing back to make sure Peter was following.

"We need to take all of the toilet paper," James said as soon as they reached the bathroom.

"Right," Sirius said, walking to the first stall. "Er, James..."

"Yeah?"

"Hi there. What exactly are you up to?" Frank Longbottom said as he stepped out of the stall Sirius had been heading towards.

"Stealing toilet paper."

"Should I ask why?"

"It's probably safer if you don't," Sirius said, as he stuffed a few rolls into his bag. James continued filling his own bag while Frank went over to the sinks.

"Should I be wary of sticking to the walls or the floor or anything?"

"Not unless you often spontaneously become a roll of toilet paper!" Sirius said cheerfully from somewhere behind James.

"Pete, did you get enough?" James asked after absconding all of the toilet paper he could see. He knew Sirius would have taken plenty. Plus, they had another few bathrooms to rob still.

"Peter!"

"Yeah," James said with an eye roll. Pete was just...well, better!

"Yes, I'm good," Peter said after a moment.

"Right then fellows! We have more bathrooms to raid!" Sirius said.

"What are you doing?" Frank asked again as they walked to the door.

"You'll see!" James yelled as they shut the door behind them.

"That wasn't very inconspicuous," Peter pointed out.

"No, but it was Frank," James said. "We don't have to be inconspicuous around him."

"What about around the greasy Slytherin? What's his name, Snivellus?" Peter said with a tone of confusion, causing James and Sirius to break out into gales of laughter.

"Oh, that's gold Pete. I think his name's Snape though," Sirius said.

"We need to be inconspicuous near all Slytherins. They would all report us. Why would you bring him up though?" James asked.

"Well, he's walking up towards us. That Gryffindor girl is with him too," Peter said, squinting off into the distance. James looked too, and saw that sure enough, Evans and the greasy Slytherin that she was friends with were walking towards them.

"Next bathroom?" James said, looking towards Sirius. He had a photographic memory, James reasoned, so should be able to name the closest bathrooms. If he paid enough attention at least.

"At the end of this hallway, we turn to the right and go to the first door on the left," Sirius said absently.

"Then lets go!" James ordered, then added, "and be inconspicuous!"

They inconspicuously snuck down the hallway, and for the next six bathrooms they came upon, snuck out all of the toilet paper in the most inconspicuous manner anyone could imagine. In one bathroom, a fifth year Ravenclaw was practicing some complex water spell with one of the faucet, so James inconspicuously pretended to need to wash his hands. Finally, after washing his hands for a good few minutes, and Sirius and Peter also taking turns with slowly washing their hands, Sirius nodded inconspicuously to James, and they let all hell go loose.

A quick murmured spell at the closest stall to James, while Sirius did the same to the stall next to it, insured that the water started spurting out of the toilet. That was a really useful spell to have learned, James reflected.

The water raised up and starting soaking everything else in the room. While the Ravenclaw was distracted with trying to fix the toilets, Peter ducked under his arm and stole all of the paper before it got too wet. James and Sirius grabbed the rest, and they all inconspicuously vacated the room before the Ravenclaw started yelling at them.

* * *

><p>Sticking rolls of toilet paper to the walls with gum, James soon learned, was incredibly hard. Even with two house elves, under the pretense they were helping put up some last minute decorations, helping.<p>

"How many rolls did we end up grabbing?" James asked Sirius after putting up yet another, only to have it fall down on his face and unroll.

"About 125 or so," Sirius said, stooping down to help James clean up. It was a fairly good system they had going. Peter chewed the gum, James placed the toilet paper on the wall, and Sirius placed the bats overtop. The house elves were helping levitate James and Sirius, so they could place the prank up even higher on the walls.

"I don't think we have enough," Peter said after another few rolls were placed on the walls. Except for he had a ton of gum in his mouth, so it sounded something more like 'I enich wevg uff."

"Yes we do," Sirius said.

"No, there's no way we do," James said after actually looking at the hall. The Great Hall was, well, really quite great and big, and the bats and toilet paper barely made a dent.

"Where could we get more toilet paper from?" Sirius asked after looking around for a second.

"The girl's bathrooms," Peter said with ease.

It took James and Sirius approximately two seconds to look at each other and bolt out of the door.

~Cessare~

"Excuse me," Peter said to an older girl wearing a Hufflepuff uniform, wondering how James and Sirius had managed to convince him to be the pigmy puff, "but would you be able to see if anybody else is in there?"

"In the girl's restroom?" She said, blinking in surprise.

"Yes," Peter said, noticing how her eyes were casting about suspiciously. No, that was worry, she thought something might be wrong with him. Peter quickly recited the story Sirius had laid out for him a few minutes prior. "My friend was supposed to meet me down that corridor a half hour ago, and I was wondering if she had stopped in the bathroom."

"Sure, I'll be out in a minute and tell you then," she said easily after looking around for a moment, before walking into the door.

"Pete, you're doing great!" James called from the other end of the hallway.

"Peter!" Peter yelled back, hoping he couldn't be heard inside the bathroom.

"Right!" James yelled again before he turned around to talk to Sirius. Peter turned back towards the bathroom, tapping his foot and hoping the girl would come back out soon. And that she wouldn't ask him for the name of his friend.

"Well, there's only one girl in the bathroom," the older girl said as she opened the door.

"Really? What color is her hair?" Peter asked. Waiting out one girl would be easy enough, he figured.

"She has blonde hair, but I think she's in there for detention. She's busy cleaning some graffiti off of the stalls," the girl said, starting to walk away.

"Thank you very much!" Peter called after the girl. Mere moments later, Sirius and James flanked Peter's sides.

"So Pete-" Sirius started.

"Peter."

"-we think you did an awfully nice with that one," James finished.

"Why did I have to be the helpless little firstie?" Peter asked

"We don't look innocent enough," Sirius explained, leaning over to poke Peter in the nose.

"And Pete, you really have the innocent look down quite well!" James said, slinging an arm around both Peter's and Sirius's shoulders.

"Peter," Peter said, squirming a bit at the unexpected arm.

"Righto!" James said. "Now into this bathroom we go! As soon as that girl gets out, that is."

"She's supposedly serving detention," Peter reminded James.

"Hm," James mumbled as he thought for a moment, releasing his arm from around Peter to rub thoughtfully at his chin.

"Ok," James said after a moment of considering. "Pete, you stay here, and as soon as that girl gets out, you sneak in and steal the paper. Sirius and I will go on ahead to the next bathroom."

"We only have an hour left until the feast," Sirius said after looking at his watch.

"Then let's hurry!" James shouted before bursting down the hall, Sirius flailing behind him.

Peter stood and watched them go for a minute, before turning back to the bathroom. James and Sirius had had enough detentions cleaning out bathrooms for Peter to know the deal; the person goes to a bathroom, cleans the walls and graffiti and the like from twelve to two or two to four, then goes back to the classroom to write a sheet of lines. Not every detention was like that, Peter had had a few just writing lines, so the cleaning aspects seemed reserved for those who had done worse deeds. If the feast started in an hour...then it had to be about four now, right? The girl should be out of the bathroom at any minute then.

Sure enough, less than five minutes later a blonde girl with a sour expression holding a bucket exited the bathroom. Peter pretended to walk down the hall for a bit until he was sure the girl was out of sight, then turned right back around and walked into the girls bathroom.

The girl's bathroom, Peter soon learned, was a whole different ball game. There was soap with strange scents, clean floors, ceilings, and walls, and had only stalls.

And they had way more toilet paper. There was a few rolls in every one of the many many stalls, and there was even a little cabinet in one corner of the room with extra toilet paper helpfully stocked in it. Peter took every roll he could find, stuffing it all into his bag, then creeping over to the door. He started to ease the door open, peering out to make sure there was nobody coming. Nobody was, so Peter eased the door open the rest of the way, and rushed out.

~Cessar~

The feast was well underway, and Peter, Sirius, and James were all sitting next to each other. Due to the unexpected influx of so many kids at once crowding into the hall, Lily Evans, to James's delight, had to sit next to James.

Just a few seats away, Remus was sitting with a book in his lap, trying, and nearly failing, to hold back a grin. Peter, James, and Sirius all had colored spots, meaning that all three had been caught in the color trap at one point or another. If Remus would be able to let slip he had managed that prank, he was sure that his friends would accept him back into their group.

"James," Peter said in a low voice as soon as Evans was distracted, "when are we doing you know what?"

"I think when Dumbles finishes talking would be best. He always talks during important things, right? And Halloween is an important thing," James replied.

"Ok," Sirius said, "do we all know what we're doing?"

James and Peter nodded, not noticing Remus's ears perk up from a few seats down.

"Right. Say, do you-" James started, but just then, Dumbledore stood up and began speaking.

* * *

><p>AN: Alright, I don't even know what I have to say for myself. It's been a year since I sat updated, and that's horribly pathetic on my part. So thank you everyone who is still reading this, and know that I really really appreciate your reviews and follows and the like! If it's any consolation, I have the next few chapters mapped out and such, and will, in all likelihood, have the next chapter finished by the middle of May, or even sooner! Thank you for reading!<p> 


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